
Glass X^,_i:- 



Book 



>FS 



Copyright )^°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



Reapers of His Harvest 



JOHN T. PARIS 

Author of ''Winning Their Way,'' ''Men 

Who Made Good;' "The Life of 

Dr, J. R. Miller;' etc. 



" Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that 
he send forth laborers into his harvest." 

--Matt. 9 ; 38. 




Philadelphia 

The Westminster Press 

1915 






Copyright, 191 5, 
By F. M. Braselmann 




)CI.A416815 

QEC 11 1915 



c^. 



Y 



^ 



Contents 

PAGE 

I. With Bible and Rifle in Africa . i 

The Story of James Stewart y of Lovedale, 

II. A Man Who Forgot Self . . 9 

The Preparation of James Robertson 
for Conquests in Canada, 

III. " Throwing Himself Away'' . 18 

How William Duncan Built an Indian 
Community. 

IV. A Maker of Ministers ... 28 

Glimpses of Herrick Johnson^ Master of 
Sermon- Making, 

V. The Unusual Experiences of a 

Missionary 35 

Chapters in the Life of Calvin W, 
Mateer. 

VI. The Father of Edinburgh's Poor 46 

The Record of Thomas Guthrie'* s Service, 

VIL Seven Years in the Wilds of 

Africa 56 

2^he Life Work of William Johnson. 
[iii] 



CONTENTS 



VIII. The Public Life of Washington 

Gladden 68 

How a Printer'* s Apprentice Became a 
Leader of Men. 

IX. Called to Save Souls ... 79 
The Strenuous Life of John Wesley. 

X. The Apostle to the Lao . . 87 

Daniel McGiharfs Half Century of 
Eager Preaching, 

XL The English-Speaking World Was 

His Pulpit 98 

*'Maclaren of Manchester ^^ and His 
Tremendous Service. 

XIL The Man Who Would Not Give Up 109 

George GrenfelPs Experiences in England 
and in Africa. 

XIIL Down Among God's People . .120 

The Joyful Service of Herbert Ro swell 
Bates. 

XIV. The Apostle of the North . 128 

How William Carpenter Bompas 
Pressed On. 

XV. Learning to Minister to Aliens . 138 

The Long Apprenticeship of Edward A. 
Steiner. 

XVI. A Humble Worker on the Zambesi 146 

William Waddell, Artisan Missionary. 

XVII. In a Country Parish . . .158 

The Intense Life of Charles Kingsley. 

Bibliography . . . .168 

[iv] 



Foreword 

Eecords of biography are the most vital books. 
Other volumes may present principles or describe 
conditions, but the worthy biography tells of a man 
or a woman who has lived for a principle, and has 
sought to improve conditions. 

And of all books of biography those most worth 
while tell of heroes who heard God's call to make 
their lives count by service to their fellows. 

"Eeapers of His Harvest'' gives glimpses of 
seventeen of these heroes and tells of their discovery 
that the only joy worth while is the joy of the man 
who says to God, '^ Here am I ; send me." 

Some of these men served in the homeland ; some 
went to mission fields. Some became famous ; the 
names of others are unfamiliar to many Christians. 
All were ordained ministers, except one missionary 
whose self-effacing life demands for him a place in 
the volume. 

In the appendix will be found a list of the bi- 
ographies from which the material for this volume 
has been gathered. This list is given in the hope 
that readers will become so interested in these brief 
sketches that they will not be satisfied until they 
turn to the complete biographies. 

J. T. F. 

Philadelphia^ Juhjj 1915. 

Lv] 



WITH BIBLE AND RIFLE IN AFRICA 

The Story of James Stewart^ of Lovedale 

'^ Doctor Stewart and General Gordon were to 
me the two greatest heroes of the age, the saintly 
servants of God and of Queen Victoria, the Elijah 
and Joshua of modern times,'' said a steamship cap- 
tain who many times carried James Stewart between 
England and Africa. This statement would have 
been endorsed by thousands who followed the mis- 
sionary in his wonderful work during nearly half a 
century. 

The first impulse to become a foreign missionary 
was received when young Stewart was fifteen years 
old. At the time, he was following the plow in 
Perthshire. " Leaning on the stilts of the plow, he 
began to brood over his future. What was it to be ? 
The question flashed across his mind, ' Might I not 
make more of my life than by remaining here ? ' 
He straightened himself and said, ' God helping me, 
I will be a missionary."' On another occasion, 
while out hunting with his cousins, he said, ^' Jim, 
I shall never be satisfied till I am in Africa with a 
Bible in my pocket and a rifle on my shoulder to 
supi)ly my wants.'' 

Years of business training, made necessary by the 
[1] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



desire to help his father, and to provide for his own 
education, gave him invaluable preparation for the 
life to which he was looking forward and taught 
him to make the most of his opportunities. 

While a student in the Divinity Hall of the Free 
Church of Scotland, he read and made a careful 
analysis of the life of Livingstone. He was so 
captivated by the volume that for a long time he 
could talk of little else ; his fellow students, who had 
called him ^^Long Stewart, '^ because of his height, 
now gave him the name " Stewart Africanus.'' 

Stewart began his ministry in the homeland, but 
it was not long before he heard the definite call to 
cross the sea, and in 1859 he proposed to the 
Foreign Mission Committee of the Free Church that 
he be sent to Africa to do missionary work in the 
region made famous by Livingstone. As the com- 
mittee felt unable to assume the responsibility, he 
organized among his friends '^The New Central 
African Committee,'' composed of eighteen men, 
^' with the view of turning to practical account the 
discoveries of Livingstone, and of opening a new 
mission in Central Africa.'' The initial expenses 
were largely paid from contributions solicited by 
himself, supplemented by the gift of his entire in- 
heritance. Then he gave himself, for he was the 
man chosen by the committee to go to Africa to look 
over the ground. 

Stewart's indomitable perseverance carried him 
through obstacles in the face of which many a man 
would perhaps have turned his back forever on the 
mission field. He was expecting to accompany Mrs, 

[2] 



WITH BIBLE AND RIFLE IN AFRICA 

Livingstone from Durban to the Zambesi on a brig 
chartered to carry another mission party to a 
neighboring field, but strenuous efforts were made 
to persuade him that he was not wanted by Living- 
stone and that he would better return to England. 
When Mrs. Livingstone assured him that her hus- 
band would welcome him and declared to the cap- 
tain that she would not sail unless Mr. Stewart was 
permitted to accompany her, he paid no further at- 
tention to the iDrotests of those who would detain 
him. 

For five weeks the delay, the efforts to persuade 
him that he was on a fooPs errand, and the assaults 
on his character continued. The time was spent in 
conducting gospel meetings and gathering informa- 
tion that might be of value to him later. Always 
his comfort was gained in reading the Bible and in 
prayer. Once he wrote in his journal : 

^^Make me patient under calumny, whether it be 
at home or abroad. Give me patience to labor at 
details as much as if they were the highest work. 
Let me not get disappointed with the opposition 
that may be thrown in the way. If it shall prove 
not to be thy call to labor here, help me to take the 
lesson thou givest for my good. Help me to be 
content with thy work in me if not by me, and out 
of all vexation and trial it has brought, only let my 
heart be brought nearer thee.'' 

Consecrated perseverance conquered. At last he 
reached Livingstone and received a welcome that 
repaid him for all he had suffered. After a season 
with the great explorer, he pushed on into the 

[3] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



forests on his own account, supporting his party by 
his riflCj frequently nearly dying from fever, and in 
constant danger of a violent death. " The Scots- 
man'' in 1899 insisted that this expedition should 
share with Livingstone the honor of opening the 
way for the abolition of the slave trade in Central 
Africa. 

On his return to Scotland after two and a half 
years of wandering, Stewart reported that the mis- 
sion project was possible. Livingstone himself 
wrote to the Foreign Mission Committee of the 
Free Church, ^' For such a man as Dr. Stewart there 
are no insuperable obstacles in the way." 

During a brief stay at home he completed his 
medical course, and gained some valuable experi- 
ence in work in the churches. Then he was sent by 
the Free Church to the missionary institute in Love- 
dale, Cape Colony, and there for three years, or un- 
til 1870, he labored under Dr. Govan, the principal. 
When he was free to work out his own plans the 
wonderful development of the institution began. 
His aim, which was thought visionary by most peo- 
ple, ^^was to uplift the native by touching him at 
every point, instructing him in all the arts of civilized 
life and fitting him for all Christian duties." 

One of the first steps was to discontinue the teach- 
ing of Latin and Greek, the study of English as the 
classic being substituted. Another innovation was 
that the native pay tuition fees. Many prophesied 
failure, but the fees were soon paid without com- 
plaint. Little by little the opportunity for industrial 
education was i)resented, Dr. Stewart's idea being to 

[4] 



WITH BIBLE AND RIFLE IN AFRICA 

give '' a practical training for brain, eye, hand and 
heart. '' Business men of the colony and relatives 
and friends at home furnished the funds required 
for new buildings, which were erected by artisans 
brought from Scotland. 

The fame of Lovedale spread. In 1873 the 
Fingoes, who lived one hundred miles to the north- 
east, appealed to Dr. Stewart to give them a similar 
school, promising to raise £1,000 if he would do as 
much. The promise was more than kept, five-shil- 
ling contributions being received from each Fingo 
until £1,450 was heaped up before the missionary. 
^^ There are the stones ; now build ! '^ said a Fingo 
orator, pointing to the money. Eeturning to Scot- 
land, Dr. Stewart raised the needed money, and on 
his return the natives doubled their subscriptioUo 
Thus Blythswood was built at a cost of more than 
£7,000. 

As a result of this institution, twenty-two years 
later it was declared that the Fingoes of Transkei, 
among whom Blythswood was located, were '^half 
a century ahead of their countrymen in wealth, 
material progress, agricultural skill, sobriety, and 
civilized habits of life, both in food, clothing and 
dwellings." 

During Dr. Stewart's visit to Scotland and Eng- 
land, he took part in the burial of Livingstone's 
body in Westminster Abbey. Later, when it was 
proposed to erect a monument to the memory of the 
missionary explorer, he insisted that the monument 
should be a mission in Nyasaland, in the region 
which he had explored twelve years before, and that 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



it should be called LiviDgstonla. The proposition 
struck the popular fancy; soon £20,000 were in 
hand, given in response to Dr. Stewart's personal 
appeals. Then he was persuaded that it was his 
duty to go and open up the new field. 

Work at Blythswood prevented his joining the 
first party that went out with the little steamer Ilala 
to Lake Xyasa, and he delayed his journey till the 
summer of 1876, when he led a party of Europeans 
and natives to the Murchison Cataract and on to 
Lake Ifyasa. For eighteen months he remained 
there, exploring, winning his way with the savages, 
choosing a site for mission buildings, and superin- 
tending their erection. 

On November 26, 1877, the Lord's Supper was 
first celebrated on Lake Xyasa, and a few weeks 
later Dr. Stewart returned to Lovedale, leaving 
Livingstonia in charge of Dr. Eobert Laws. Since 
then only one generation has passed, but the savages 
have become civilized. '^The war dresses of the 
wild Angoni have long ago rotted on the village 
trees, or been sold as curios to travelers. These 
bloody men are now messengers of the Prince of 
Peace, evangelizing the villages they used to raid.'' 
In 1897 a missionary told of having seen a field of 
wheat at Mwenzo, and added, ^'The N'goni were 
reaping it with their spears. Not one of these 
assagais is now used for war. They have beat the 
iron of some into hoes, which are the native plow- 
shares. With these spears they cut their grain and 
prune their trees.'' 

At Lovedale, Dr. Stewart once more devoted him- 
[6] 



WITH BIBLE AND RIFLE IN AFRICA 

self to buildiDg up the school, which had become 
almost a university. The rauge of education given 
was from the alphabet to theology, and every form 
of industrial activity that would be helpful to the 
natives was given a place in the busy school. Of 
course the natives were not eager for work and their 
attitude was illustrated by a new pupil, who de- 
clared that the first commandment was, ''Thou 
shalt do no work.'' But Dr. Stewart set them the 
example by working with his own hands at the 
tasks they dreaded most. It was a common thing 
to see him throw off his coat and show a Kafir how 
to make a straight furrow. It was his ambition to 
show the natives how to do any work required of 
them, and this as a necessary part of training them 
in Christian character. 

Most missionaries would have thought the school 
was enough of a burden for one man, but Dr. 
Stewart preached regularly, built a hospital, did a 
vast amount of medical missionary work, wrote 
books, edited a newspaper, and was busy at various 
other things. 

No wonder he was the man chosen to establish a 
new mission in what became the East African Pro- 
tectorate. He was at home on his first real fur- 
lough in twenty-four years when the request came 
in 1891. Long before the end of the year he was in 
Africa once more^ leading an expedition through a 
difficult country to the river Kibwesi, near Kili- 
manjaro. There the new station was opened. 

With the exception of the months taken for a 
visit to Scotland in 1898 in order to perform his 

[7] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



duties as moderator of the Free Church General As- 
sembly, Dr. Stewart spent the remaining twelve 
years of his life at Lovedale. 

Thus, in active, earnest service, the years passed 
until December 21, 1905, when, at the age of sev- 
enty-six, the worker was called home. He was 
buried in Sandili Kop, overlooking Lovedale. The 
simple inscription over his grave reads : 

James Stewart 
Missionary 

There is no more significant comment on Dr. 
Stewart's life than his own words, spoken in a meet- 
ing at Lovedale, when he heard something said 
about the sacrifices made by missionaries. 

Sacrifice ! What man or woman can speak of 
sacrifice in the face of Calvary % What happiness 
or ambition or refinement has any one given up in 
the service of humanity to compare with the sacrifice 
of Him who '^ emptied himself and took upon him- 
self the form of a servant ' ' % 

''It made some of us feel rather ashamed of our 
heroics,'' said one who heard him, ''for we knew 
that, if ever a man since Livingstone had a right to 
speak like that, it was Dr. Stewart." 



[8] 



II 

A MAN WHO FORGOT SELF 

The Preparation of James Robertson for Conquests in 
Canada 

Of the mother of James Eobertson, who was born 
in Dull, Perthshire, Scotland, on April 24, 1839, 
the story is told that one day, when in need of a 
shawl which could not be secured nearer than Crieff, 
she walked the round trip of fifty-five miles, in a 
single day, in order that her desire might be grati- 
fied ! 

It was just as characteristic of her that she al- 
lowed nothing to stand in the way of her hopes for 
her children, especially James. She believed that 
he would have a large place in the world, and daily 
she planned for his future. When a neighbor spoke 
scornfully of him, because of the poverty of his 
home, her answer revealed this belief. Not that 
she was eager that he should become a famous man 
or rich ; her one desire was that he should be of use 
to his fellows. 

It was not always possible to permit James to at- 
tend the parish school. Frequently he was kept 
out in order that he might add a little to the family 
purse by acting as bird boy for some well-to-do 
neighbor or as gillie for the sportsmen who came to 

[9] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



1 



Scotland for a week's shooting. That absences from 
school did nob interfere with his standing is evident 
from this statement by his schoolmaster : 

^^ James was very often taken from his lessons to 
help his mother in household work when she would 
be employed at outdoor toil on neighboring farms, 
yet, despite this, he outstripped his classmates, 
especially in Latin, arithmetic and geometry. He 
had a clear head, great powers of concentration, and 
a memory so retentive that he seldom forgot what 
was worth remembering. Of all the boys I have 
put through the scholastic mill in a period of forty 
years, none gave me more pleasure or raised my 
hopes of his success higher than did James Eobert- 
son.'' 

'' He never let go what he once took a grip of," 
was the statement of a friend in explanation of his 
successes in school and in later life. His biographer 
relates an incident that shows how early he de- 
veloped this spirit of determination : 

'^ When he was about sixteen, a problem that had 
given some trouble in the college in Edinburgh was 
sent down to the master at Dull. ^ If any of them 
can solve it,' said the master, ' it will be Eobertson,' 
and to Eobertson he gave it, who took it home and 
fell upon it. When his father was going to bed that 
night, he said to his boy, ^ Are you not comin' to 
your bed, lad?' * Yes, after a while,' replied the 
boy, hardly looking up from his slate. But when 
next morning the father came in to light the fire, 
James rose from the spot where he had been left 
sitting the night before, with the solution of the 

[10] 



A MAN WHO FORGOT SELF 



problem in his bands. No wonder that he was the 
delight and pride of the master and of his fellows in 
the schooh" 

It is good to read in connection with this tribute 
to his scholarship the testimony of one who knew 
him at this period : " He was uo duffer, but eujo^^ed 
fun as much as any of them.'' 

Naturally the parents and the schoolmaster longed 
to see the determined boy in college, and James was 
as eager as they were. But a chapter of misfortune 
stripped the father of most of his few poor posses- 
sions, and when an invitation came from Mrs. 
Eobertson's brother to join him in Canada it was 
decided, after earnest prayer, to make the move. 

Then came a test of James' loyalty to his parents. 
Ealph Connor tells of this : 

'^Shortly before their departure the parish min- 
ister brought an offer from the trustees of what was 
known as the Stewart bequest, the proceeds of 
which were to be devoted to the education of bright 
lads in the district, to undertake the education of 
James, if he would remain behind. It w^as a time 
of sore trial for them all, but at length one and all 
agreed that it could not be. Not even for the col- 
lege education, so long desired, and so toilfully 
sought, could they bear to leave the boy behind." 

On the frontier farm in Western Ontario, to 
which the emigrants found their way, there was so 
much to do that for a time school opportunities 
were limited. He helped to clear the land, chopped 
cordwood and hauled it to Woodstock, and per- 
formed other tasks of a farm hand. 

[11] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



During the first summer he attended a short 
session of school in Woodstock, walking the six 
miles twice each day. While there he heard the 
announcement of a teachers' examination. At once 
he made known his purpose to undergo the test. 
Although urged to wait a year, that he might be 
more sure of success, he persisted in his determina- 
tion to win the certificate at once. 

He did win it, and several months before his 
eighteenth birthday he was duly installed as 
teacher. He was then "a raw, awkward youth. 
His clothes were made by the traveling tailor, and 
none too elegant. His manners and speech were 
abrupt almost to the point of rudeness at times, but 
he carried into his work a purpose to get the best 
out of himself and out of that little company of boys 
and girls that faced him in the Corner School." 

During the winter the young teacher united with 
the Woodstock Presbyterian Church. It is related 
by his biographer that on the Communion Sunday 
when he was to take his vows as a follower of Christ 
he walked two miles to church with a friend, who 
has told of his memories of the day thus : 

^'As we went along the Governor's Eoad there 
was a bush, ^Light's Woods,' on the south side of 
the road. Eobertson suggested that we turn aside 
into the bush, not saying for what purpose. We 
penetrated it a short distance, when, with a rising hill 
on our right and on comparatively level ground, the 
tall maples waving their lofty heads far above us, 
and the stillness of the calm, sunny day impressing 
us with a sense of the awful, we came to a large 

[12] 



A MAN WHO FORGOT SELF 



stone. Eobertson proposed that we engage in 
prayer. We knelt down together. He prayed that 
he might be true to the vows he was about to take, 
true to God and ever iaithful in his service, and 
then he prayed for me also.'' 

Probably this was the same youug man who 
testified to Robertson's missionary zeal. '^I was 
one of his converts to total abstinence on principle," 
he said. ^^We did not take or make any pledge, 
but I can thank God for meeting Eobertson when I 
was young." 

Missionary zeal led him to serve elsewhere than 
in the home where he was a boarder. His work in 
the Sunday school not being sufficient to satisfy 
him, he gathered together the poor Gaelic-speaking 
people of Woodstock, and every Sunday conducted 
services for them in their own language. 

When he became a Christian his work in the 
schoolroom seemed more than ever important. 
During the two and a half years in the Corner 
School, and the three years in a larger school at 
Innerkip, he sought to inspire the boys and girls 
with the highest ideals. He urged them to make 
the most of themselves. He was more sane in these 
counsels than some well-meaning but unwise vis- 
itors of conspicuous position whom he heard at 
a Sunday-school picnic attended by many of his 
pupils. After listening to the urging of several 
speakers that the young people strive for high posi- 
tions in Church and State, his turn came. His 
message was as earnest as those which had pre- 
ceded : 

[13] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



^' You cauDOt all attain high i30sitions ; there are 
not enough to go round. You cannot all be preach- 
ers or premiers, but 3^ou can all do thoroughly and 
well what is set you to do, and so fit yourselves for 
some higher duty, and thus by industry and fidelity" 
and kindness you can fill your sphere in life and at 
last receive the ' well done ^ of your Lord. '' 

Always it had been the hope of the Eobertsoii 
family that James might become a minister. In 
this hope he shared. His work in the church and 
among the poor of the town made him all the more 
eager to win his way through college and present 
himself before the presbytery for ordination. He 
attacked the problem with the love for conquering 
obstacles that had led him so often to seek the 
tough, gnarled pieces of wood which the choppers 
had rejected, and handle them energetically and 
persistently until they became fuel fit for the fire. 

He was twenty-nine years old before he was able 
to enter the University of Toronto. Then followed 
years of intense application. He had no time to 
think about winning the approval of his fellow stu- 
dents, but he did win it, in spite of his appearance, 
which has been described by one who was a fellow 
student : 

'' Though he wore his trousers at high water 
mark, and thongh his hats were wonderful to be- 
hold, and his manners abrupt and uncouth, still 
^ Jeemsie,' as he was dubbed by the irreverent, 
commanded the respect of the giddiest of the lot, 
for his fine heart and for his powers of pungent 
siDcech. '' 

[14] 



A MAN WHO FORGOT SELF 



Two years followed at Princeton Seminary and a 
year at Union Theological Seminary, New York. 
The vacations were spent in missionary work in 
Canada, and in connection with the last year's work 
activity as a city missionary occupied all the time 
not given to the classroom aud the study. By the 
Board of Managers of Alexander Mission he w^as 
engaged to preach on Sunday, conduct a prayer 
meeting, attend a teachers' meeting and visit in the 
homes of the poor twelve hours a week. In his 
spare time he was to attend Sunday school and sew- 
ing school, and make out full monthly reports of 
his stewardship. For these services he was to re- 
ceive forty dollars per month. 

Signal success in the Mission brought an unex- 
pected problem : he was asked to remain on the 
field after his graduation from the seminary, and a 
salary much larger than he could expect to receive 
in Canada was offered him. But, as he wrote to 
Mary Cowing (one of his old pupils), to whom he 
had been engaged for ten years, he felt the call of 
the backwoods settlements of Canada. He realized 
that, by remaining a year in IN^ew York, he would 
be able to save enough to start housekeeping in 
Canada ; but he feared that a year in the city 
might wean him from the home of his people. So 
the decision was made to decline the flattering in- 
vitation. 

A little later a much larger salary was offered 
him by another New York congi'egation. A friend 
urged him, ^^Stay, Eobertson, and you will become 
the pastor of a large church in New York. You 

[ 15 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



have the ability and you only need it brought out 
by circumstances.^' A leading minister advised 
him to remain, saying to him that ''he would be 
sure to rise much quicker there than he could pos- 
sibly do in Canada. '^ 

He owned that he was tempted by the alluring 
prospect. Yet he did not lose his self-poise. To 
Miss Cowing he wrote : 

''We are no longer our own. The time for self 
is gone with us. When we entered this sphere it 
was with the understanding that we were ready to 
do the Master's work wherever he wished. If true 
to him, then we must still do or else bear the conse- 
quences of going at our own charges. It would be 
a fearful thing to think of in our future course, that 
we had regarded self and selfish considerations and 
not our Master's work. If his work did not prosper, 
we could scarcely ever forgive ourselves. But I 
acknowledge to you that it is not an easy matter 
for me to decide what to do." 

Within a few months he was settled in the needy 
field of Norwich, Ontario, where the salary was 
only about a quarter of the salary offered him in 
New York. There, on November 18, 1869, he took 
the bride who had waited for him so long, and there 
he labored for five fruitful years. 

For seven years he was pastor of Knox Church 
of Winnipeg. Then, in 1881, he heard the call of 
the prairies, and became Superintendent of Presby- 
terian Home Missions. Thereafter, " Canada, west 
of the Great Lakes, was his mission field,'' to quote 
a sentence from his memorial tablet. 

[16] 



A MAN WHO FORGOT SELF 



In twenty-one years he accomplished marvels for 
God, and inspired others to do wonderful things. 
"He gained the respect and confidence of every 
class of the population/' General Assembly's Home 
Mission Committee said of him after his death. 
"Amid farms, or ranches, or mines, or villages, or 
cities, he was equally known and venerated. He 
was always looked upon as a hero, of the type the 
West is proud of, and spent himself in tireless 
labors for the spiritual welfare of that vast region. 
A loyal Presbyterian, he was no sectarian. He 
wanted the West for righteousness and the fear of 
God.'' 

The years of his superintendency witnessed mar- 
velous developments. His biographer says of 
these : 

" The one Presbytery of 1887, with its four con- 
gregations and eighteen missions, has developed 
into eighteen presbyteries with 141 congregations 
and 226 missions, giving service at 1,130 posts; 
and to-day in the Canada that lies west of the 
lakes, we have the foundation of a great church 
laid solidly and well.'' 

On the block of granite erected over his grave 
there were engraved these sentences : 

"Endowed by God with extraordinary talents, 
entrusted by his church with unique powers, he 
used all for the good of his country and the glory 
of God. The story of his woik is the history of 
the Presbyterian Church in Western Canada, and 
while Western Canada endures, that work will 
abide." 



Ill 

^THROWING HIMSELF AWAY^ 

How William Duncan Built an Indian Community 

• ' I WAS the only young man there. Why should 
not I become a missionary ? May not the Lord 
have something for me to do in heathen lands ? ' ' 

These were the insistent questions that came to 
William Duncan, twenty-one years old, on his re- 
turn from a missionary meeting in Beverly, Eng- 
land, in December, 1853. Before he slept the ques- 
tions were answered ; he had resolved to devote his 
life to missionary service, turning his back on the 
promising mercantile career already opening before 
him. 

When his employers learned of his purpose, they 
offered him a handsome increase in salary if he 
w^ould remain with them. The temptation was reso- 
lutely put aside. A little later the members of a 
rival firm urged him to enter their employ, propos- 
ing to pay him a salary of one thousand pounds. 
When he would not listen to them, they laughed at 
him, and declared he was throwing himself away. 
^' You have one of the keenest business minds in 
England,'' one of them said. ^^ Don't you see you 
are making a fool of yourself! " 

^^ Fool or no fool, my mind is made up, and noth- 
ing can change it," was the positive reply. 

[18] 



'* THROWING HIMSELF AWAY 



After two years of traiuiDg in Highbury College, 
the thoughts of the volunteer were turned from 
India by the appeal of a naval officer to the Church 
Missionary Society for missionaries to go to the de- 
praved Indians of Southern Alaska. When the So- 
ciety thought of available men, the name of William 
Duncan suggested itself to them so insistently that 
they finally sent for him. Then the president said 
to him : 

''Duncan J the Society contemplates opening a 
mission among one of the most savage tribes of In- 
dians of the northwest coast, but as any missionary 
sent there will have to take his life in his hands, 
and perhaps will never return, it does not feel like 
taking the responsibility of sending any one there 
unless he would practically volunteer his services. 
Your name has been suggested. Will you go ? '' 

^' I will go wherever I am sent, sir,'' William an- 
swered. 

^^But the missionary who goes must sail next 
Tuesday.'' 

^' I can go in an hour if it is necessary, sir.'' 

When warned once more of the danger, the young 
man answered : 

^'Whether I will ever return, sir, will be the 
Lord's business. Going is mine. I am ready to do 
my part, and I am sure we can trust the good Lord 
to do his." 

After a trying voyage he was about to go to his 
appointed field, when the officers of the Hudson Bay 
Company urged him to give up liis plan. Tliey 
told him that his life would not be wortli a mo- 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



ment's purchase if he should go to the wild ludians ; 
if, on the contrary, he would stay amoug the In- 
dians near Victoria, he would be able to do valuable 
work, and would be in no danger. 

'' The trouble is that I am sent to Fort Simpson, 
and to Fort Simpson I must go,^' was Mr. Duncan's 
answer. ^^ If I cannot go there, I must return, un- 
less you can secure from the Society a change in my 
orders, which I do not think you can. And, to tell 
you the truth, I would not myself very much favor 
such action." 

Arrived at Fort Simpson, the missionary's first 
task was to make a dictionary of fifteen hundred 
common English words, whose Tsimshean equiva- 
lents he laboriously learned from the natives. From 
these he made simple sentences and began his com- 
munications to the Indians. 

Eight months after his arrival, Mr. Duncan faced 
his first native cougregation. One hundred Indians 
gathered in the one-room house of a chief to hear 
about '^ God's letter to the Tsimsheans." The same 
day he repeated his message in the house of eight 
other chiefs, each of whom had gathered a company 
of followers. One of the chiefs, Legiac, was so 
much impressed that he offered the use of his house 
for a school, which was opened at once, with twenty- 
six children present. Soon a schoolhouse was built 
by the natives, much of the material being taken 
from their own houses. In the new building the 
enrollment on the first day was one hundred and 
forty children and fifty adults. 

All went well for three months after the opening 

[20] 



** THROWING HIMSELF AWAY ** 



of the new baildiDg. Then Mr. Duncan was asked 
to dismiss school for a month, because the passing 
of the school children on the street interfered with 
certain mysterious heathen rites just then to be ob- 
served. Although warned that to refuse would be 
dangerous, the missionary decided that he could 
not grant the request ; school would be held as 
usual. Angered, Legiac, the chief in whose house 
the first school had been held, visited the school- 
master, taking with him a number of other Indians, 
approached him with a knife, and declared that he 
had killed men before, and that he had made up 
his mind to punish him. Another Indian cried 
out : 

^^Kill him. Cut his head off. Give it to me, 
and I will kick it on the beach." 

Just then Clah, Mr. Duncan's native language 
teacher, entered the room, carrying a pistol. 
Legiac, knowing that he would be shot if he re- 
mained, hurried away with his followers, and the 
missionary was safe. 

So wisely did Mr. Duncan conduct himself when 
in the presence of the man who had sought his life 
that, less than four months after, Legiac came to 
the school to sit at the feet of ^' the white chief " 
and learn about "" the good way." 

Sometimes the missionary was so discouraged 
that he would pray that he might never awake. He 
rejoiced that God did not grant his petition, for in 
October, 1861, he was privileged to welcome twenty- 
three converts. With scores of others, these gath- 
ered several times each week in a new and larger 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



building, made necessary by the growth, of the 
school. 

Six months later Mr. Duncan, having determined 
that the task of Christianizing the Indians was al- 
most impossible when they were near the fort, sur- 
rounded by temptations, persuaded many of the 
natives to abandon their homes and follow him, 
seventeen miles south to the beautiful island Metla- 
kahtla, there to build a Christian village. Six 
canoes carried fifty men, women, and children 
away from plenty to struggle and privation. 

The small company felt lonely at first, but within 
two weeks thirty canoes, loaded with three hundred 
people, followed to the new home, and asked to be 
allowed to join the colony. 

A scourge of smallpox, which threatened to fill 
the minds of the pioneers with gloom, was turned to 
blessing by this dying testimony of one of the vic- 
tims : 

'^ Do not weep for me. You are poor, being left. 
I am not poor. I am going to heaven. My 
Saviour is very near to me. Do all of you follow 
me to heaven. Let not one of you be wanting. Be 
all of one heart, and live in peace.'' 

In the new village houses were built and gardens 
were planted. Mr. Duncan was chief in authority. 
Under him were native constables. All the chiefs 
in the village laid aside their robes of office. 

The progress of Metlakahtla was marvelous. A 
church was built. The Sabbath was scrupulously 
observed, even in the short fishing season when 
every hour was valuable. Roads were built and 

[22] 



" THROWING HIMSELF AWAY 



other public improvements were made from the 
proceeds of the village tax of one blanket (two dol- 
lars and fifty cents for every adult male) and one 
shirt, or one dollar for every boy approaching man- 
hood. The total proceeds of the first levy w ere ' ' one 
green, one blue, and ninety -four white blankets, one 
pair of white trousers, one dressed elk skin, seven- 
teen shirts, and seven dollars." 

A blacksmith shop was opened, a carpenter shop, 
and a soap factory. Then, to take the Indian away 
from the demoralizing influence of the store at the 
fort, Mr. Duncan resolved to have a store of his 
own. The Hudson Bay Company balked all his ef- 
forts. Finally he bought a stock of goods at 
Victoria, six hundred miles away, but the company 
refused to transport these on its steamers. Borrow- 
ing fifteen hundred dollars, Mr. Duncan bought a 
schooner, manned it with Indians, and became an 
independent carrier. The company made war on 
the new store in ways familiar to a powerful cor- 
poration ; but, forced to own itself beaten, soon as- 
sured the militant missionary that if he would sell 
his schooner the company's vessels would serve 
him. After that all went well, and the village 
prospered as never before. 

Further advances were made when a water-power 
sawmill was built, as well as a brick kiln, w^hich 
made all the bricks needed at home, in addition to 
some for sale to other tribes. But the industrious 
missionary was not satisfied. In 1870 he went back 
to England for a six months' stay, during which he 
determined to gain a sufficient knowledge of many 

[23] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



trades to teach his native wards. This is the list he 
made before his start : 

^'Teasiug, carding, spinning, weaving, cleaning, 
dyeing, drying wool ; making soaj), brushes, baskets, 
rope, clogs, staves ; dressing deerskins ; making 
bricks and tiles ; gardening ; photography." 

Unbelievable as this may seem, he learned these 
trades well in the limited time at his disposal, and 
had leisure for other things. 

From a capitalist he obtained the gift of thirty 
musical instruments for a brass band he proposed to 
organize among the Indians. Then, since no one 
else could teach them, he went to a music teacher in 
Victoria, on his way home, and asked to be taught 
the use of the thirty instruments in eight days. 
^'He took eleven lessons, paid eleven dollars, and 
when he was through he had learned the gamut of 
them all. '^ 

In Metlakahtla once more, 3Ir. Duncan superin- 
tended the construction of a ropewalk, a clog shop, 
a cooper's shop, and a sash and door factory. 
Women were taught to spin the wool of the moun- 
tain sheep. A church, with accommodations for 
twelve hundred people was built at a cost of twelve 
thousand dollars, much of this being contributed 
by the natives themselves. Eighty-seven two-story 
houses were built and a schoolhouse seating eight 
hundred people. "' In short, the little village com- 
menced to assume the substantial and cozy ax)pear- 
ance of a Xew England town.'' The profits of the 
store and the shops were partly responsible for these 
changes. 

[24] 



" THROWING HIMSELF AWAY 



Mr. Daocao's biographer gives thislist of the mis- 
sionary's occupations at this time ; ^^ Preacher, pas- 
tor, schoolmaster, doctor, magistrate, chief of police, 
mayor, manager of a store, a sawmill, and of half a 
dozen manufacturing establishments, church builder 
and architect, bookkeeper, gardener, and adviser 
and arbiter of every little dispute arising between 
nine hundred to one thousand people, only one de- 
gree removed from barbarism.'' And almost all of 
this was done without assistance. During the earlier 
years of his work several helpers were on the ground, 
but they did not remain long. 

The most marvelous chapter in the story of Will- 
iam Duncan is yet to be told. In 1881, after thirty- 
five thousand dollars had been expended on public 
improvements in Metlakahtla (only six thousand of 
this sum having come from outside friends) the 
Church Missionary Society requested Mr. Duncan to 
resign the mission to the care of a bishop sent out 
from England, and to return home. Mr. Duncan 
felt very keenly the folly of teaching his simple 
natives the ritual of the Church of England with all 
its observances. 

When no other course seemed open, Mr. Duncan 
began to think of a second pilgrimage. His eyes 
turned longingly to an island to the north, belong- 
ing to Alaska. Going to the United States he told 
many influential men of his hope. Among others, 
Phillips Brooks and Henry Ward Beecher promised 
to help him. President Cleveland and his cabinet 
advised him to take his Indians to the Alaskan 
island, assuring him that Congress would later grant 

[25] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



the land they chose. In 1891 Congress set apart the 
Annette Islands as a reservation for the use of the 
Metlakahtla Indians, and other natives who might 
join them. 

On August 7, 1887, '^ Pioneer Day/' the advance 
guard of Duncan- s Indians landed at their new 
island home. After building a few rough cabins, 
they returned for their families and their movable 
possessions. Within a few weeks eight hundred 
and twenty-three of the nine hundi^ed and forty- 
eight peoiDle in 3Ietlakahtla moved to Xew Metla- 
kahtla. Of these only two or three families re- 
turned, appalled by the severe hardships they must 
encounter. 

Since the occupation of the new village one hun- 
dred and thirty permanent homes have been built, 
most of them attractive houses which would do 
credit to any American village/ Three sawmills 
have been constructed, the first two having been 
destroyed by fire, with losses of twelve thousand 
and nine thousand dollars. The village store was 
opened, which to-day carries a stock worth twenty 
thousand dollars. In rapid succession were built a 
town hall, a large public school, a salmon cannery 
which, in twenty-four years, sent out twelve million 
cans of fish. The cannery and other industries were 
financed by a twenty-five-thousand-dollar cor^^ora- 
tion, half of the stock being taken at home, while 
friends subscribed the remainder. In 1905 the cor- 
poration was dissolved, the native stockholders be- 

^ These figures are for 1909. when Mr. Arctander's account of 
Mr. Duncan's work was published. 

[26] 



'* THROWING HIMSELF AWAY 



ing paid fifteen per cent as well as the principal of 
their investment, while other investors were awarded 
seven per cent and the principal. 

In 1893 ^'Mr. Duncan's Westminster Abbey'' 
was begun ; on Christmas Day, 1896, it was dedi- 
cated. The building ^4s one hundred feet loug, 
has a seventy-foot span, is forty-three feet to the 
ceiling, and the tops of the spires on the towers are 
eighty feet above the ground." There is a pipe- 
organ, and up-to-date fixtures for the use of acety- 
lene gas. Everything but the organ was the prod- 
uct of native labor. The cost was ten thousand 
dollars, twenty-five hundred dollars being contrib- 
uted by the natives, forty -five hundred dollars by 
Mr. Duncan, the remainder by friends. 

The main street of the village is paved with 
planking ; there is a jail, which is never occupied, 
and a public library, the largest in Alaska, contain- 
ing two thousand and seventy-seven volumes. 

In 1905 President Eoosevelt recommended to Con- 
gress that the Christian Indians of New Metlakahtla 
be granted citizenship. The recommendation was 
not adopted, but it is hoped this recognition will 
not be long delayed. 

And so *Hhe man who threw himself away" has 
his reward. God had turned his sorrow because of 
threatened disaster to gratitude because of larger 
opportunities and greater blessings than he had 
dreamed of. 



[27] 



ly 

A MAKER OF MINISTERS 

Glimpses of Herrick Johnson^ Master of Sermon- 
MaMng 

When — in the late forties of the nineteenth cen- 
tury — Mr. Jay Johnson of Fonda, New York, sent 
his son Herrick to school at Jamestown, New York, 
it was his idea that the young man would follow 
him in a business career. 

At that time Herrick was described as a clean, 
rollicking, cheery boy, intelligent, honest, and gen- 
erous to a fault. But he seemed to have no thought 
at all of the spiritual life. His brief stay in the 
home of a relative, who was pastor of the Jamestown 
Presbyterian Church, did not make any special im- 
pression on him. 

But it was different when his relative left James- 
town, and he was invited to make his home with 
the family of a Christian physician. In spite of 
himself, he was impressed by the beautiful life in 
the home. Daily, at the family altar, he heard a 
petition for himself. At a time of special religious 
interest in the church he pretended to take the mat- 
ter very lightly. But his heart was growing tender, 
and when the daughter of the house, one of his com- 
panions at school, timidly spoke to him of her wish 

[28] 



A MAKER OF MINISTERS 



that he become a fellow member with her in the 
church, he was deeply impressed. He tried to 
laugh at her, but she '^screwed her courage to the 
sticking point,'' as she afterwards said, resisted his 
ridicule, and renewed her invitation. He resisted 
until one day when she said, ^^Be a Christian, Her- 
rick.'' Then he went out to the barn and cried to 
God for mercy. Later, in the dark basement of the 
church, after an inquiry meeting, he gave his heart 
to the Saviour. 

In a letter written in after life, which is quoted in 
the story of his life by Dr. Eobinson, he told of 
what followed : 

'^ I went back that next spring to Buffalo, where 
my father lived, and resumed the occupation of the 
previous year, taking my old position in a forward- 
ing and commission oifice, but with my heart no 
longer in the work. The desire was planted in me 
to be a preacher of the gospel, and it grew and grew 
as the days and weeks and months went by. That 
desire never left me. I waited a year to test it, that 
I might surely know whether it was a temporary 
enthusiasm born of the hour, or a conviction born 
of the Spirit of God. Meanwhile, I kept at my post 
as a sliipping clerk, having made public profession 
of my faith in Ohrisf 

When he told his father of his conviction that he 
should become a minister, his father expressed dis- 
appointment, and asked him to reconsider his de- 
cision, in view of the fact that he seemed to be 
doing so well at his business. 

A few weeks later, however, the young Christian 

[ '-39 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



told him that his feelings were unchanged, and that 
he was eager to have permission to begin prepara- 
tion for college. To his joy, Mr. Johnson gave con- 
sent, and he entered Hamilton College in 1853. 

There he became at once a general favorite. His 
genial qualities and his fondness for outdoor sports 
made him the chosen companion of the finest men 
in the college. But he did not yield to the tempta- 
tion to neglect classroom work and literary society 
activities. From the first he took high rank in his 
class, winning a number of prizes. 

There was one honor, however, which did not 
come to him easily. He aspired to excel in oratory, 
an art for which Hamilton College was famous dur- 
ing the years of his residence there. The story of 
his successful struggles for this particular honor is 
told thus by Dr. Eobinson : 

'' Probably there was nothing he wanted so much 
as the prize in his class at the next commencement. 
But unfortunately his standards and ideals of public 
speaking were just as far as possible from the 
Mandevillian standard. (The Chair of Oratory at 
Hamilton was called the Mandevillian Chair.) He 
had acquired what was called a ministerial tone and 
other faults fatal to any success, unless eradicated. 
The best speakers of the upper classes were the 
recognized and accepted ^ drillers ' of the new boys, 
who at once put themselves under their care and 
criticism. Every spring and fall a certain valley 
with a grove, north of the college, was the resort 
of the aspirants for success at this time.'' 

To this grove Herrick eagerly made his way, in 

[30] 



A MAKER OF MINISTERS 



the compauy of a friendly tutor. But the tutor was 
in despair, because, while Herrick had a magnificent 
voice, it was ^' well-nigh ruined by his sins against 
the right method of using it. He soon saw that it 
was going to be essential for him to go down to the 
foundation of his wrong methods and break them 
all up and absolutely eradicate his ^ tone. ' It was 
no easy thing to do, but the young man was in- 
tensely ambitious, and so he worked with the 
greatest energy." 

His first attempt was a failure ; he was compelled 
to look on while four classmates captured the ap- 
pointments as Freshman orators. Undiscouraged, 
he tried again in Sophomore year. Once more he 
failed. As a Junior he redoubled his efforts, and 
was successful at the end of the year. ^'He went 
on the platform conscious of his power and swept 
everything before him as the Junior prize speaker.'' 

In Auburn Seminary his power as a speaker was 
developed rapidly, and he became a most acceptable 
preacher in the churches in and near Auburn. A 
visitor in a church where he spoke one Sunday men- 
tioned him to the committee of the First Presby- 
terian Church of that city, who were looking for an 
assistant pastor. A call was given to him, and in 
1860 he began his work there. 

Fourteen years of strenuous work in the pastorate 
followed. After a brief service in Troy he became 
pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church of Pitts- 
burgh. There his arduous labors in tlie chuidi and 
his ministry to soldiers through (he Christian Com- 
mission made inroads on his health, and he found 

[:n] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



relief in a stay at Marquette, Michigan. He worked 
just as hard in this obscure field as he had worked 
in the great Pittsburgh church. 

In 1868 he became pastor of the First Church 
of Philadelphia, one of the oldest Presbyterian 
churches in the country, made famous by the long 
pastorate of Albert Barues. Herrick Johuson very 
soon became a recognized leader in the city. His 
leadership in church councils, also, was unques- 
tioned. During the days when reunion was talked 
of between the Old School and New School wings 
of the church, he was a power in council and on the 
platform, and to him was due much of the credit for 
the successful issue of the campaign. 

At the time of his residence in Chicago as pastor 
of the Fourth Presbyterian Church (from 1880 to 
1883) he was described as ^^a man of medium size 
and striking physique, haviug in every respect the 
air and manner of a Christian gentleman. The deep 
overhanging brow, piercing eye, unaided by glasses, 
so generally necessary to clergymen of his age, de- 
note the great preponderance of the intellectual 
above the physical. But it is as the rhetorician 
and the elocutionist that we specially admire the 
man. His style is clear and to the point. His 
delivery . . . was filled with energy, the voice 
clear and wonderfully distinct, yet managed with 
grace and elasticity." 

While pastor at Chicago he was given the degree 
of doctor of laws by Wooster University, and was 
chosen moderator of the General Assembly of 1882. 

While in charge of the First Church he devoted 

[32] 



A MAKER OF MINISTERS 



part of his time to the duties of the Chair of Homi- 
letics at the Theological Seminary of the Northwest 
in Chicago, later the McCormick Theological Semi- 
nary. His success with the students was so great that 
he was urged to resign the pastorate and give his 
full strength to work in the seminary. For the 
second time, then, he listened to the call of a 
theological seminary, and became professor of 
Homiletics and Pastoral Theology in the fall of 
1883. The six years at Auburn Seminary, 1874 to 
1880, which followed his Philadelphia pastorate, had 
shown his fitness for the work of equipping students 
for the ministry and his taste for the work. So his 
friends were not surprised by his decision. 

During twenty-five years at McCormick he im- 
pressed himself and his message on the hearts of 
hundreds of men who later became leaders in the 
Church. To him they owed much of their ability 
to preach effectively. They listened to his pleas 
^Ho seek to make every sermon a soul -winner ; to 
let the whole soul go out into the sermon every 
week." 

One who followed his work in the seminary has 
said of it : ^^ By what he thus wrote upon the minds 
and hearts of the young men who came under his 
instruction he has multiplied and extended his in- 
fluence throughout our country and the world. 
They are 'living epistles,' each one having more or 
less the marks of his handwriting upon them.'' 

Dr. Johnson, never a recluse, was especially 
active in outside work when he was at the seminary. 
He was always a leader in the General Assembly. 

[33] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



His plan for the Board of Aid for Colleges and 
Academies was adopted, and for many years he was 
president of the new board. 

It was said of him that ' ' he was not ambitious to 
secure leadership. His preeminence in the church 
was not accidental or attained by selfish methods. 
He was a great preacher, not only through his 
knowledge of the Scriptures and his ability to pre- 
sent their teachings in systematic form, but also 
through his power to appeal to the consciences and 
the hearts of his hearers." 

When his seventy-second birthday came and he 
felt that it was time to retire, he did not become 
inactive. In Chicago, in St. Louis and in Phila- 
delphia, where he made his home for the next ten 
years, he was a power for righteousness. Always 
he was eager to preach the Word, and always the 
peoi)le were eager to hear him. 

It was not till 1913, sixty-five years after his com- 
panion in the Xew York town urged him to become 
a Christian, that he heard God'S call to lay down 
his burden and go into the presence of the King 
whose gospel he had proclaimed for more than half 
a centuiy. 



[34] 



THE UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES OF 
A MISSIONARY 

Chapters in the Life of Calvin W. Mateer 

Calyin Wilson Mateer was born on a farm 
near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on January 9, 1836. 
His parents were of that sturdy Scotch-Irish stock 
that has done so much for America and the world. 
Both were earnest Christians, vitally interested in 
foreign missionary work. Mr. Mateer^s quiet, 
earnest life made a deep impression on his chil- 
dren, but the son Calvin always insisted that the 
influence of his mother had been most potent in his 
life. She had always longed for a college educa- 
tion. The story is told that once she dreamed she 
had entered as a student at Mount Holyoke, but 
awoke in tears to find that she was white-haired. 
Children trained by such a mother could not fail to 
desire the education made possible by careful plan- 
ning and economy of both father and mother. 

The home training bore rich fruit. Seldom has 
there been as remarkable a record as that made by 
the Mateer family. Calvin was the oldest of seven 
children, five brothers and two sisters. Calvin and 
Eobert became missionaries in Shantung, China ; 
John for five years had charge of the Presbyterian 
Mission Press at Shanghai, and later of the Congre- 

[35] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



gational Press at Peking, where he died ; Lillian 
taught in the Girls' School at Tengchow, and mar- 
ried a Baptist missionary in Shanghai ; William 
desired to become a missionary, but reluctantly 
turned to a business career, yielding to the advice 
of those who felt that his duty was at home ; Jennie 
married a Presbyterian minister, and both were 
under appointment to go to China, when ill-health 
compelled them to remain at home ; Horace is a 
professor in the University of Wooster, Ohio. 

After leaving college, and before entering the 
"Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Penn- 
sylvania, Mateer taught in the academy at Beaver, 
Pennsylvania. 

Although from boyhood Calvin Mateer's thoughts 
had been turned to the foreign mission field as the 
possible scene of his life work, it was not until near 
the close of his seminary course that he definitely 
offered himself to the Board of Foreign Missions. 
He was accepted, but it was impossible to send him 
at once, on account of the disturbed condition in- 
cident to the Civil War. For a season he was 
stated supply of the Presbyterian Church at Dela- 
ware, Ohio, where he was married to Miss Julia A. 
Brown. In 1863 they were told to prepare to go to 
Tengchow, China, and on July 3 of that year they 
sailed, with Mr. and IMrs. Hunter Corbett as fellow 
passengers. 

The voyage on a sailing vessel proved to be one 
of the most trying that missionaries have ever been 
called upon to endure. The trip required one hun- 
dred and sixty-five days. The captain was a tyrant 

[36] 



UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES OF A MISSIONARY 

to the crew, and all but brutal to the passengers, 
especially the missionaries, whom he hated for their 
work's sake. 

From Shanghai a coasting steamer took them to 
Chefu, but within a short distance of the destination 
the vessel was wrecked. The passengers were 
landed, and passed hours of misery trying to find 
their way to Chefu amid snow and ice. At length 
they returned to the scene of the wreck, where they 
found an English gunboat, which carried them to 
Chefu. A few days later they arrived at Teugchow. 

In 1864 there were not many more than one hun- 
dred ordained Protestant missionaries in all China. 
In Shantung only Chefu and Tengchow were oc- 
cupied. At Tengchow the Baptists had begun 
work in 1860, while the Presbyterians followed 
soon after. Two of the Baptist missionaries were 
killed by robbers, while the Presbyterian forces 
were depleted by sickness. The Mateers and the 
Corbetts came just when they were most needed. 

Almost at once Mr. Mateer was called upon to 
exercise the mechanical and inventive gifts for 
which he soon became noted. No house being- 
available for his use, he cleared a room in the 
rough house of another missionary, built a chimney, 
and made a stove since none could be bought in the 
city. His story of how he worked is worth reading : 

^^ Mr. Mills and I went to work to make a stove 
out of tin. We had the top and bottom of an old 
sheet-iron stove for a foundation, from which we 
finally succeeded in making what proves to be a 
very good stove. We put over one hundred and 

[37] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



sixty rivets in it in the process of making it. I 
next had my ingenuity taxed to make a machine 
to press the fine coal they burn here into balls or 
blocks, so that we could use it. They have been 
simply setting it with a sort of gum water and 
moulding it into balls with their hands. Thus pre- 
pared it was too soft and porous to burn well. So, 
as it was the time of the new year, and we could 
not obtain a teacher, I went to work, and with 
considerable trouble, and working at a vast dis- 
advantage from want of proper tools, I succeeded 
in making a machine to press the coal into solid 
square blocks. At first it seemed as if it would be 
a failure, for although it pressed the coal admirably, 
it seemed impossible to get the block out of the 
machine successfully. This was obviated, however, 
and it worked very well, and seems to be quite an 
institution.'' 

This machine subsequently he improved, so that a 
boy could turn out the fuel with great rapidity. 

Later, under his own supervision, the house was 
built which was his home from 1867 to 1894. There 
he did most of his life work, and there the Mandarin 
Ee vision Committee held its first meeting. 

Mateer's ability to use tools always stood him in 
good stead. His life was filled with so many other 
activities that his friends were apt to pay little at- 
tention to his mechanical contrivances. But his 
achievements ^^ With Apparatus and Machinery'' 
(this is the title of an intensely interesting chapter 
of his biography) were so noteworthy that they 
would have been thought sufficient for the entire 

[38] 



UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES OF A MISSIONARY 

work of an ordinary lifetime. He bad Lad no train- 
ing except that received on the home farm, where 
much of the machinery used was made on the place, 
yet he could turn his hand to anything. He made 
a casket for a missionary's child when none was 
available ; he made an electric fan, using as a model 
a small one he had bought. He taught electrotyp- 
ing to a class of native artisans, after he had picked 
up the art for himself. When a large dynamo 
failed to produce a current he unwound the 
machine, located the fault, reinsulated the wire and 
rewound the coil. At his own expense he fitted up 
a workshop where he kept a workman, whose wages 
he paid himself. He was able to do anything 
'' from setting up a windmill or water system, or in- 
stalling an engine and dynamo, to brazing broken 
spectacle frames or repairing a bicycle.'' During 
one of his earlier furloughs he spent some time in 
the Baldwin Locomotive Works at Philadelphia, in 
order that, on his return to China, he might con- 
struct the model of a locomotive for the instruction 
of Chinese boys. It is said he found difficulty in 
convincing some of the skilled mechanics that he 
had not been trained to the business. When on his 
way to America on his last furlough, a train was 
delayed by difficulty with the locomotive. No one 
seemed able to remedy the difficulty till Mateer 
pointed it out and instructed the workmen how to 
proceed. 

This mechanical ability was turned to good ac- 
count in attracting the Chinese. In later years, at 
his own expense, a museum was equipped, in which 

[39] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



numerous marvels were shown, many of these being 
of his own construction. Through this museum 
twelve thousand people were brought into touch 
with the gospel in a siugle year (1909). 

Dr. Mateer also started industries for native 
Christians and promoted self-help among the 
needy. Now it was a loom for weaving coarse 
Chinese linsey or bagging, or a spinning or a knit- 
ting machine that he ordered ; again, he inquired 
for a roller press to be used for drying and pressing 
cotton cloth after dyeing ; and more than once he 
sent for a lathe for a Chinese blacksmith. In 1896 
he interested himself in procuring an outfit for a 
flouring mill. He said: ''The enterprise of start- 
ing the mill was conceived by Chinese Christians, 
and they are going to form a company to raise the 
money. I do not think that there is a roller mill in 
China — certainly not in North China. . . . We 
personally will not make a cent out of it ; but we 
are interested to get the Chinese Christians started 
in an enterprise by which they can make a living, 
and introduce improvements into their country.'^ 

His apprentices went out in many instances 
master blacksmiths, machinists, and electricians, 
and had no difficulty in finding places. A Chinese 
general, temporarily at Tengchow, employed one of 
these men as a blacksmith, and it was so evident 
that his orders were filled according to Western 
methods that he paid a visit to the wonderful shop 
of this wonderful master. The very last man for 
whom Dr. Mateer obtained a place was his most 
skilled electrician and his latest foreman. 

[40] 



UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES OF A MISSIONARY 

But the mechanical work whose influence was 
so far-reaching was only an incident in the life 
of Dr. Mateer. His name will be remembered 
chiefly for his labors to make the study of the diffi- 
cult Chinese tongue more simple for his successors. 
When he began language study, printed helps were 
few and not very good. Teachers were scarce. His 
progress was slow. Yet, in the words of one of his 
associates, he ''became not only the prince of 
Mandarin speakers among foreigners in China, but 
also so grasped the principles of the language as 
to enable him in future years to issue the most 
thoroughgoing and complete work on the language, 
the most generally used textbook for all students of 
the spoken tongue.'^ While the task was still far 
from complete, he wrote of it : 

''Each lesson illustrates an idiom, the word 
idiom being taken with some latitude. The sen- 
tences, as you will see, are gathered from all 
quarters, and introduce every variety of subject. I 
have also introduced every variety of style that can 
be called Mandarin, the higher style being found 
chiefly in the second hundred lessons. The prevail- 
ing object, however, is to help people to learn 
Mandarin as it is spoken. I have tried to avoid 
distinct localisms, but not colloquialisms. A large 
acquaintance with these is important, not to say 
essential, to every really good speaker of Mandarin. 
It is, of course, possible to avoid the most of them, 
and to learn to use a narrow range of general 
Mandarin which never leaves the dead level of com- 
monplace expressions, except to introduce some 

[41] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



stilted book ]3lirase. This, however, is not what the 
Chinese themselves do, nor is it what foreigners 
should seek to acquire. Many colloquialisms are 
very widely used, and they serve to give force and 
variety to the language, expressing in many in- 
stances what cannot be expressed in any other way. 
I have tried to represent all quarters, and in order 
to do so I have in many cases given two or more 
forms.'' 

The lessons were not published until 1892, twenty- 
five years after they were begun. They immediately 
became popular ; now they are more largely used 
than any similar help. A large portion of the profits 
was generously devoted to the extension of work in 
the mission schools and other institutions. 

At the urgent request of the Synod of China, the 
lessons were printed at the Mission Press in Shang- 
hai, of which Dr. Mateer was su]3erintendent from 
1870 to 1872. During his incumbency, as well as in 
later years, the Press published a number of other 
books written by him, including an algebra and a 
geometry. 

Next to the Mandarin Lessons, perhaps his most 
important literary work was the Mandarin version 
of the Bible, of which he was one of the translators. 
At the first general missionary conference in Shang- 
hai in May, 1877, it was decided that it was neces- 
sary to have new versions of the entire Bible that 
would displace the many partial versions in use. 
One version in simple Wen-li (or Classic), and one 
in Mandarin (or popular language) were determined 
on. Dr. Mateer was appointed on the committee 

[42] 



UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES OF A MISSIONARY 

of five which had the latter version in cliarge. Of 
this committee Dr. Mateer aud Dr. Chaiiucey Good 
rich alone continued at work until the New Tes- 
tament was completed in 1907. The translation of 
the Old Testament was begun by the committee 
which completed the JSTew Testament. 

Dr. Mateer was not only an educator through his 
books ; he was an active teacher during most of 
the period of his services in China. In Septembei", 
1863, a school for Chinese boys was opened in his 
own home. Mrs. Mateer joined her husband in 
teaching. The work was slow, but the missionaries 
never wearied. Thirteen years later the first class 
was graduated. For five years more it continued, 
doing the work of high-school and collegiate grade 
without making any pretensions to the name college. 
Then it was finally called a college. During the 
eighteen years it had educated more or less com- 
pletely two hundred pupils, and all of those who 
remained long enough and were mature enough 
became Christians. 

Dr. Mateer continued at the head of the Teng- 
chow College until 1805. In 1904 it was removed 
to Wei-hsien, a far better location. Dr. Mateer 
also removed to Wei-hsien, not because he was 
teaching in the college, but because he could not 
live away from it. Yet even if he was not officially 
connected with the institution, he was always work- 
ing for it. In 1907 he consented to become i)resi- 
dent, in an emergency, and he carried on the work 
for a short time. 

Dr. Mateer was always an evangelist as well as 
[ 43 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



a teacher. With joy he i3reached his first sermon 
in Chinese ; and his joy in telling the people of 
Him who died to save them increased as the 
years passed. In Tengchovr, and far away in the 
interior, he found his way to the hearts of the peo- 
ple as he delivered his message. Thirty-three years 
after reaching China he wrote : 

' * I have traveled in mule litters, on donkeys, and 
on foot over a large i)art of the province of Shan- 
tung, preaching from village to village, on the 
streets and by the wayside. Over the nearer por- 
tions I have gone again and again. My j)reaching 
tours would aggregate from twelve thousand to fif- 
teen thousand miles, including from eight thousand 
to twelve thousand addresses to the heathen. '' 

From the early days of the Tengchow school he 
had native Christians in training, and to the close 
of his life he urged the necessity of equipping Chi- 
nese for work among their countrymen. As pastor 
at Tengchow he gave many object lessons in what 
he meant, and the success of the work there is an 
eloquent testimony to the wisdom of his plans and 
the faithfulness of his work. 

Thus passed forty-four years of a life of prayer, a 
life of toil, a life of joyful endurance of hardshii3S 
for the sake of his Master. Before he left America, 
he said in public : 

' ' I have given my life to China. I expect to live 
there, to die there, and to be buried there." Again 
he said : '^ I expect to die in heathen China, but I 
expect to rise in Christian China." 

He did die in heathen China, but it was a China 
[44] 



UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES OF A MISSIONARY 

less heathen because of God's blessing on his efforts. 
His death followed months of suffering, during 
which he was engaged on the translation of the 
Psalms into Mandarin. When he was rapidly sink- 
ing he prayed that he might live to finish the book. 
But God saw fit to take him before the work was 
done. 

His last words were, ^'Holy! Holy! True and 
Mighty !'' Soon after gasping this expression of 
his wondering faith, on September 28, 1908, he '^fell 
asleep.'' 

In the vault prepared at Chefu his body waits for 
the resurrection. Then he shall see, according to 
his prayer, a Christian China. 



r45] 



YI 

THE FATHER OF EDINBURGH'S POOR 

The Record of Thomas Guthrie^ s Service 

Neae, the close of the first decade of the nineteenth 
century two Scotch boys were crossing a swollen 
stream. The older of the two carried the other on 
his back. When halfway over, the smaller lad be- 
came frightened and slipped into the stream. His 
companion grasped him instantly, but the panic of 
those in danger of drowning came over him, and he 
so impeded the efforts of his rescuer that for a time 
it looked as if both would lose their lives. Fortu- 
nately the sturdy youth, by keeping his head, suc- 
ceeded in bringing his burden safe to land. 

Sixty years later he wrote of his joy and thankful- 
ness that his life had been spared. And his thank- 
fulness has been echoed in the hearts of thousands 
who have read of his boyhood experience. For the 
hero was Thomas Guthrie, who became one of the 
greatest preachers and ecclesiastical leaders Scot- 
land has produced. 

It was a few years before this experience that 
young Guthrie, who was born July 12, 1803, had 
his first days at school. He was four years old 
when he was enrolled in the school kept in his 
native village, Brechin, by a weaver, a good old 

[46] 



THE FATHER OF EDINBURGH'S POOR 

mau who lived in one room with his wife and 
daughter. Loom, beds, other household furniture 
and school furniture were all in this room. But the 
school furniture was meager ; there were only half 
a dozen three-legged stools on which the pupils sat 
and studied, to the music of the loom and the shriek 
of the leather thong, used by the weaver-teacher to 
remind his charges of neglected duty. 

Three years later Guthrie found himself in a more 
ambitious school, where he really began to acquire 
the education that was a marvel even in the Scot- 
land of his day. 

But he was more than a student. He was a real 
boy, as a memory of those days proves. He was 
only seven when, with the others he played truant. 
The culprits, knowing what the penalty would be, 
resolved to stand together when called to account 
by the teacher. Telling him that he could either 
forgive them or fight them, the teacher chose to for- 
give them. Nevertheless the penalty for the double 
transgression was duly paid by the pugnacious 
Thomas, when his escapade was reported to his 
father. 

In November, 1815, when he was only twelve 
years old, Guthrie made his way to the University 
of Edinburgh. The phrase, '^made his way,'' is 
used advisedly, for the journey from Brechin was 
no simple matter. Part of the way he went by cart. 
The Tay was crossed in a pinnace. For some dis- 
tance he proudly rode on top of a stagecoach. The 
last ten miles to the Foith w;is m;ide on foot, then 
another pinnace was taken to Edinburgh. 

[47] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



Though Guthrie's father was in comfortable cir- 
cumstances, it was thought best that the young stu- 
dent should live most economically. He roomed 
with his tutor in a very small apartment. His bill 
of fare was tea once, oatmeal porridge twice a day, 
and for dinner fresh herring and potatoes. '^Butch- 
er's meat'' was a luxury enjoyed twice during his 
first term. His total expenses, aside from fees, books 
and the expense of tutor, were not more than ten 
pounds. 

In less than four years he received his degree 
from the university. When he was nineteen he had 
completed, in addition, his theological course. As 
two years must pass before he could be licensed, ac- 
cording to the law of the Presbyterian Church of 
Scotland, he returned to the university for a post- 
graduate course. In 1825 the license was granted. 
He was then eligible to a call from a church, on re- 
ceipt of which he would be ordained. 

But there were difficulties in the way of receiving 
the call. He might have had it at once, if he had 
been willing to fulfill the conditions. But these con- 
ditions were too grievous. The call issued by a 
congregation was a mere form. The congregation 
acted as it was told to act by the nobleman whose 
right it was to name the incumbent. Young Guthrie 
was informed that he might have one of the best 
livings in Scotland if he would agree to side with 
the government against the popular party in the 
church. Though he was eager to begin active work, 
and though he was engaged to the daughter of the 
pastor of the Brechin church, and his marriage 

[48] 



THE FATHER OF EDINBURGH'S POOR 

must wait until he had a field, he refused to sell his 
birthright for a mess of pottage, as he himself put it. 

Eesolved to waste no time, he went to Paris, de- 
termined to spend a year in study at the Sorbonne. 
By so doing he felt he would be just so much better 
equipped when the call should come to him. On 
his return from Paris there seemed once more to be 
prospect of a call, but the fact that he was by this 
time known as one of the popular party in the Es- 
tablished Church of Scotland led to a second disap- 
pointment. He wondered why God had permitted 
him to spend so many years in preparation, only to 
keep him out of the Church for so long a time. 

A few years later he understood that either call if 
given would have led to serious trouble. The first 
church he missed was so large that he would prob- 
ably have been dwarfed and stunted for life by 
overwork ; the second was in a presbytery where 
there was little spiritual life among the ministers. 
'^It was not a safe atmosphere to breathe, and I 
was safer out of it,'' he said. '' I have lived to see 
that I had no more ground than Jacob to say, ' All 
these things are against me.' " 

Again the interval of waiting was profitably em- 
ployed. His first plan was to go to a German uni- 
versity, but his elder brother, the Brechin banker, 
died suddenly, and it was necessary that some one 
should carry on the bank in the interests of the heir. 
So Thomas Guthrie, licentiate, became Thomas Guth- 
rie, country banker. With all his heart he gave 
himself to the work, and so paved the way for valu- 
able development in his first field. 

[49] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



At last, in 1830, he became pastor at Arbirlot, in 
Forfarshire. The patron of the living offered to 
build a new manse for Guthrie and his bride, but 
the request was made that a new church be built in- 
stead. This was done, and the young couple went 
to live in a house one hundred years old. '^ The floor 
of the small parlor formed an inclined plane, having 
sunk so much on one side that when a ball was 
placed on the table it rolled off. The dining room, 
which, unless when company was in the house, was 
only used as the study, was so open through many 
a cranny to the winds of heaven that the carpet in 
stormy weather rose and fell and flapped like a 
ship's sail.'' Next to this was a sleeping closet 
whose occupants were one morning roused by a 
shower bath. The kitchen had no other ceiling but 
the floor of the bedroom that stood over it. 

This was bad, but the old church was worse, as 
the pastor described it. ''There was nothing but 
an earthen floor below and no ceiling above. On 
beginning the services on a winter Sunday I have 
often seen the snow, that had blown through the 
slating, lying white on the rafters, waiting to tumble 
down on the heads of the people when loosened by 
their breath." When the church was rebuilt, not 
only were these faults remedied, but an innovation 
was made that called down on the head of the de- 
voted pastor the auger of many of his leading mem- 
bers. In the original church the seats had been put 
in by the members, each farmer building enough 
for all his servants and minor tenants. Few of 
these seats being required for the persons for whom 

[50] 



THE FATHER OF EDINBURGH'S POOR 

they were built, the farmers leased them to others. 
Having a monopoly of the seating privileges, they 
charged trust prices. An end was put to this cus- 
tom by the building, from session funds, of pews 
which were rented at a very small price. By advo- 
cating this plan, Guthrie fulfilled the prophecy made 
by an old woman when he went to Arbirlot : ^^ If 
yon new minister is faithful to his Master, be sure 
he'll have a' the blackguards of the parish on his 
tap in three weeks.'' 

One of the problems he solved in Arbirlot was 
the Sunday evening service. It was a problem for 
reasons very similar to those given by twentieth 
century ministers. In Arbirlot the solution was 
found when the young people were brought together 
for a more popular service than that held in the 
morning, the chief feature being the presentation of 
the morning sermon in a new way, ^Hhe various 
topics being set forth by illustrations drawn from 
nature, the world, histoiy, etc., of a kind that 
greatly interested the people, but such as would not 
always have suited the dignity and gravity of the 
pulpit.'' The experiment was a success ; not only 
the young people but many of their elders crowded 
to the service. 

There were other innovations — a parish library, 
kept in the manse, which was used with delight by 
hundreds of the people, and a savings bank, to 
which all in the parish were invited to bring their 
savings. The time in the Brechin bank had pre- 
pared him to take the lead in this bit of institu- 
tional work. His Satuidny afternoons were given 

[51*] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



up to it. When he left the field, after some years, 
there were more than six hundred pounds on de- 
posit, the property of people who, without the 
bank, might not have saved six hundred pence. 

Guthrie's reputation as a preacher and an organ- 
izer attracted the attention of the Edinburgh 
churches. Several times he was urged to allow his 
name to be used in the city, but he invariably re- 
fused. He would not even go there to preach as a 
supply. But finally his prominence as a leader in 
the successful fight against patronage (as the nam- 
ing of ministers to vacant pulpits without regard to 
the wish of the people was called) was responsible 
for his being named by the Edinburgh Town 
Council one of the pastors of Old Greyfriars 
Church. 

In Edinburgh he might have chosen to do the 
work that kept him among the wealthy and the cul- 
tured, but he chose to leave this to his associate, 
while he was instrumental in organizing St. John's, 
a Collegiate Church, in the purlieus of old Edin- 
burgh, of which he was given charge. There he 
visited in the homes of the poor and preached to 
them in this church. They knew it as their church, 
and they were glad to think of him as their preacher. 
They flocked to hear him in great numbers. The 
rich people came also, attracted by his fame. But 
they had to wait until the poor people were seated ; 
then they were welcomed to any remaining pews. 

While he was ministering to the poor he did not 
forget the fight for freeing the church from patron- 
age which he had begun while in Arbirlot. This 

[52] 



THE FATHER OF EDINBURGH'S POOR 

fight came to its logical conclusions on May 18, 
1843, when five hundred ministers of the Estab- 
lished Church voluntarily surrendered their livings 
and founded the Free Church. Guthrie was one of 
their leaders. On that eventful day he exi^lained 
his attitude in public : ^^ I am no longer minister of 
St. John^s. I understand, that this day there has 
been a great slaughter in the Old Assembly, and 
among the rest my connection with the Established 
Church has been cut, or rather, I may say, I have 
cut it myself. I know they have resolved to declare 
my church vacant. They may save themselves the 
trouble." Most of his congregation went with him. 
Before many years he was pastor of a church larger 
and stronger than St. John's. In fifteen years the 
annual income of the Free Church was greater than 
that of the Established Church, with all its endow- 
ments. 

For more than twenty years Dr. Guthrie con- 
tinued to take a leading part in Scottish church life. 
He was moderator of the Assembly, he fathered the 
manse scheme by which hundreds of manses were 
provided for the free churches, he outlined a plan 
for Eagged Schools, and developed these to great 
efficiency. But perhaps his greatest service was to 
the temperance cause. The sight of the misery 
caused by drink in his Edinburgh parish, and the 
knowledge that the use of liquor was customary 
among all classes, led him to throw all the weight 
of his influence ngainst the use of intoxicants. On 
th(^ platform, by his pen, and in the homes of the 
people he argued for tem])er:inee. 

[ r>:5 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



And his work was successful. Whereas, when he 
was a student, there was not, so far as he knew, a 
single abstaining student within the university, 
abstinence among the students became so common 
as to excite no remark. When he entered the min- 
istry it is said that there was not an abstaining 
minister in the Church of Scotland. Even when he 
was speaking in behalf of the temi^erance move- 
ment, it was thought strange that he should say, as 
he did once, that he would rather see in his i3ulpit 
a man who was a total abstainer from the root of 
all evil, drink, than a man crammed with all the 
Hebrew roots in the world. But before he laid 
down his weapons a different story could be told. 

Worn out by work in the city, in his church and 
out of it, the famous minister for many years spent 
liis summers on Loch Lee. There he fished and 
tramped and rested during the week. But on Sun- 
da}^ he could not be idle. He was accustomed to 
go to the loch side, there to preach to the people 
who came from far and near. It was a strange com- 
pany he had — crofters and shepherds sat on the 
grass by the side of men and women of title. But 
his chief thought, in the country as in the city, was 
for the poorer ones among his hearers. 

The busy life came to an end on February 24, 1873. 
Thirty thousand jDeople gathered at the Grange Ceme- 
tery to pay their last respects to the friend of all the 
people — one of the largest funerals ever known in 
Edinburgh. Professor John Stuart Blackie voiced 
the feelings of that multitude and of other thousands 
who were unable to attend the funeral : 

[54] 



THE FATHER OF EDINBURGH'S POOR 

The city weeps ; with slow and solemu show 

The dark-plumed pomp sails through the crowded way, 
The walls and roofs are topped with thick display 

Of waitiDg eyes that watch the ending woe. 

What man was here to whose last fateful march 

The marshaled throng its long-drawn convoy brings, 
Like some great conqueror's when victory swings 

Her vans, o'er flower-spread path, and wreathed arch? 

No conqueror's kind was here, no conqueror's kin, 
But a strong-breasted, fervid -hear ted man, 

Who from dark dens redeemed, and haunts of sin, 
The city waifs, the loose unfathered clan. 

With prouder triumph than when wondering Rome, 

Went forth, all eyes, to bring great Caesar home. 



[55] 



VII 

SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

The Life Work of William Johnson 

Nearly one hundred years ago William A. B. 
Johnson, a young German, entered at the office of 
the Olmrch Missionary Society in London and asked 
to be sent with his wife as a teacher to some one of 
the mission schools. Investigation made by the 
society revealed a remarkable story. 

The young German was employed at a sugar ware- 
house. Until three years before his application he 
was not a Christian, but was living a careless life. 
One day, when he was all but penniless, with little 
clothing and not enough food for the needs of the 
day, his wife sick, he felt that he might as well give 
up his struggle for existence. But just at the mo- 
ment of greatest need there came to him the memory 
of a text he had learned at the school in his home 
town in Germany : 

Call upon me in the day of trouble ; 

I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. 

'^Surely,'' he said, ^^this is 'a day of trouble.' 
Will he deliver me — me, who have sinned so against 
him"? And now may I, indeed, call upon God to 
deliver me? ^' 

[56] 



SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

The auswer to liis prayer did not seem to come. 
He began to despair. Next day he went to work as 
usual. He bad eaten no breakfast, for there was no 
food in the house. An hour or two later, w^hen his 
fellow workmen went home for breakfast, he thought 
it was of no use to follow their example ; he knew 
too well that there was nothing in the house. Yet 
he went home j ust the same. 

^^His wife met him at the door, smiling, and led 
him to an ample morning meal," Dr. A. T. Pierson 
says, in his life of Mr. Johnson. ^' Judge his aston- 
ishment to learn that a lady from India, who had 
taken a house near by, had applied to his wafe for 
some one to stay with her, and had given her four 
shillings, bidding her put the house in order, and 
promising her further payment for her services.'' 

Johnson's heart was touched. God had heard 
him and had delivered him. But how was he to 
glorify God ! He was a sinner, and surely God 
could not care for his praise. Eeckless and almost 
despairing once more, he went out to a prayer meet- 
ing, where he heard a Moravian missionary tell of 
the love of the Saviour. Before he left the meeting 
he gave his heart to Christ. 

At once he began to work for his Master. He 
testified for Christ among his companions, but his 
words seemed to have no effect but to make them 
scoff at him. 

However, he was to have a harder test than this. 
Sunday work was demanded of him. Once he would 
have welcomed sucli a call ; his pay wns only eight- 
een shillings a week, and he had need of evciy 

[57] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



extra penny he could earn. Xow all was changed. 
He could not work on Sunday ; he was a Christian. 
So he gave up his position and went to the sugar 
warehouse, where Sunday work was not required. 

Some time later he became convinced that he 
should offer himself to the missionary society. Yet 
he feared he would be rejected because he was not 
young, he was uneducated, and his wife was nut a 
Christian. He began to pray for her conversion, 
and his prayer was answered. For a time she was 
not in sympatb}^ with his iDurpose to devote his life 
to work among the heathen. Again he prayed, and 
once more his desire was given him. Mrs. Johnson 
made known to him her willingness to go with him 
to the ends of the earth. 

The missionary candidates were accepted, and 
were told that they were needed in Sierra Leone. 
At first their courage faltered when they thought 
of going to this ^' dumi)ing-ground for the world's 
refuse population, ignorant and degraded people, 
rescued from the holds of slave shij)S, or exported 
from overcrowded cities like London, where they 
had become an intolerable stench in the nostrils of 
the community.'* But new courage came to them 
as they recalled God's promise : 

I will bring the blind by a way that they know not ; 

I will lead them in paths that they have not known : 

I win make darkness light before them, 

And crooked things straight. 

These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. 

On March 11, 1816, ^Iv. and Mrs. Johnson sailed 

[58] 



SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

for Africa. Six weeks later they reached Freetowu, 
and it was then decided that the filthy settlement 
called Hogbrook, the abode of the lowest of the 
low, should be the scene of the labors of the de- 
voted husband and wife. 

It was a discouraging prospect before them. No 
one thought that anything could be done for the 
negroes of Hogbrook. Mr. Johnson did not know 
what he could do. In fact, he knew that he could 
do nothing. Therein lay his equipment for the 
work ; the assurance that he could do nothing en- 
abled him to depend wholly on God. Because he 
was a man of prayer, because he believed that the 
Word is given to help the laborer in the vineyard, 
and because he depended on the Holy Spirit for 
counsel and guidance and direction, he was abun- 
dantly fitted to undertake the discouraging task that 
lay before him. 

He found fifteen hundred released slaves waiting 
to be taught. They were like wild beasts. ^^As 
Livingstone confessed a half century later in the 
wilds of equatorial Africa, he felt as though he were 
in hell itself and breathing the sulphurous atmos- 
phere of the bottomless abyss. Such utter wretched- 
ness and unspeakable vileness he had never before 
seen ; and, withal, sin brought forth death literally, 
for six or seven died in a day.'' 

It was difficult to make himself understood by 
the miserable freedmen. They had been brought 
from many different sections, and they spi)ke many 
dialects. Only a few knew even a smattering of 
English. They were so degiaded that their lau- 

[ r>9 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



guage could not be made to express the ideas the 
missioDary had come so far to teach. 

While studying how to begin his work, the young 
German lived with his wife in a leaky hut, in which 
the ground was his only bed. Fortunately Mrs. 
Johnson was able to find shelter in a better house 
until a fairly comfortable home could be built. jS^o 
wonder her husband said that he was ''in a wilder- 
ness.'^ But (evidently in self-rebuke that he had 
permitted himself to make such a faultfinding 
statement) he added: ''In the wilderness shall 
waters break out, and streams in the desert. And 
the parched ground shall become a pool, and the 
thirsty land springs of water.'' 

The promise was fulfilled. Somehow, within 
eighteen months, the place was transformed. The 
land about the village was cultivated under his 
direction. A school and a church were well filled. 
Dr. Pierson says that he has searched the annals 
of the century without finding any ]3arallel to this 
far-reaching improvement, unless in the Hawaiian 
Island, in the Telugu Mission in India, in Bauza 
Manteke in equatorial Africa, and in northern 
Formosa. Yet, he owns, what Johnson saw in 
Sierra Leone surpasses the events in all these 
places. 

When Mr. Johnson asked to be sent to the 
foreign field, he said he wanted to teach school. 
As a school-teacher he was sent to Sierra Leone. 
He did teach school there. But he did far more. 
He had to do so, for there was no helper except his 
earnest wife. "He had to oversee blacksmiths, 

[60] 



SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

masons, carpenters, attend to storekeeping and land 
tilling, be a surveyor and a purveyor, teach and 
preach, feed bodies and feed souls, all at once.'' 

He was not an ordained man, but how could he 
keep from preaching to those who so needed the 
Word? '' I have no ability, no authority, but what 
can I do*? " he said. '' My heart is full, and if I 
should hold my peace, the very stones would im- 
mediately cry out.'' His preaching was so richly 
blessed that the London missionary committee de- 
cided that he must be ordained. His associates in 
near-by fields were called together, and he was set 
apart for the work of the ministry. 

There were a number of conversions before his 
ordination. The Saturday evening prayer meeting 
was the scene of many confessions of faith in Christ. 
On one memorable Saturday evening, two young 
negroes cried out, '^ Jesus, Massa, have mercy.'' 
After the meeting the missionary found, in a house 
near by, a crowd of negroes conducting a service of 
their own. When he entered there was evidence 
that many of those present had found the Saviour. 
In his diary he said later that he had never before 
witnessed such a scene. He was almost overcome 
as he beheld the workings of God on their hearts 
and consciences. 

A few weeks after this meeting, the Lord's 
Supper was celebrated with forty-one communi- 
cants. This seemed a large number to the man 
who had asked God to give him one soul in Hog- 
brook. Yet he did not make the mistake of de- 
pending on numbers. In one of his letters to the 

[61] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



secretary of the missionary society he said : ^ ' I 
cannot say how many communicants we have. The 
number is great ; I am afraid to number them.'' 

For the accommodation of tlie throngs who went 
to the church services a stone building was erected. 
Although it had accommodations for five hundred 
people, within four weeks it was too small for the 
congregations. The capacity was nearly doubled 
by the building of a gallery ; but even so, the place 
was crowded. The growth of the school kept pace 
with the growth of the church. After a time he 
had ninety boys, as well as many girls. An even- 
ing school was held for adults; forty-three were 
enrolled. Soon there were one hundred and forty 
in the day school, and more wanted to come. 
When greater accommodations were provided, 
nearly two hundred and fifty availed themselves of 
the privilege ; soon even this number was doubled. 

The standard of living became higher as Chris- 
tians became more numerous. The people were 
ashamed to be seen unclothed. They wanted bet- 
ter homes. Soon there were among them masons, 
bricklayers, carpenters, shinglemakers, smiths, 
sawyers, tailors, and brickmakers. Of all these 
artisans, the missionary was the leader and the in- 
spirer. It is hard to say whether he was busier 
during the week or on Sunday. Kight after night 
he would go to bed feeling that he could never gain 
strength for another day's work, but the next morn- 
ing would find him beginning a new day of urgent 
toil. On Sunday mornings he would frequently rise 
from a sick bed to go to church, with the knowledge 

[62] 



SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

that he had not simply one or two services before 
hinij but as many services as could be crowded into 
the day. There were people, and not a few, who 
attended every Sunday six separate services of w or- 
ship, beginning with a prayer meeting at six o'clock 
in the morning, then a preaching service at half- 
past ten, another prayer meeting at two o'clock, and 
the preaching service at three, and concluding the 
day with two more prayer meetings at six and a 
quarter past eight. 

Soon the new converts began to show interest in 
giving the gospel to others. They did work among 
their associates, and were not disheartened when 
they met with rebuffs. Once, at an evening meet- 
ing, Mr. Johnson told of a poor woman who had 
made a gift to missions, although she had little for 
her own needs. ^' When he had done speaking four 
communicants spoke in behalf of the cause of mis- 
sions, and asked to form a missionary society, and 
urged that an evening each week might be set apart 
for its meetings. At the opening meeting the house 
was full. At this meeting seventeen converts in 
broken English pleaded the cause of those who had 
not yet heard of Christ. William Tambo prayed 
God to send out more laborers to the regions be- 
yond, and emphasized both his prayer and his 
speech by giving a half crown. Thinking that he 
might not understand that a monthly offering was 
contemplated, it was so explained to him ; but his 
answer was, ^I know, and I will give a similar sum 
each month.' It was then decided that those who 
became members should undertake to give not less 

[03] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



than twopence a month, and one hundred and 
seven at once became subscribers, after which 
several of the schoolboys and girls gave their pence 
and halfpence. One boy, being asked where he 
got his money, answered : ^ Me have three coppers 
long time by 5 Massa take two, me keep one.' At 
the close of the meeting it was announced that next 
evening there would be a missionary prayer meeting 
on the summit of a hill near by, and that all who 
wished to be present were invited. To the astonish- 
ment and gratitude of the missionary, three hundred 
and twenty-one negroes accepted the invitation. 
His heart was very tender as he thought how 
recently these had been among the most degraded 
inhabitants of Hogbrook." 

The progress of the Christian community in out- 
ward civilization was so great that the attention of 
the governor of the colony was attracted* He was 
delighted as he noted that what was ''a desert over- 
grown with bush, and the dwelling place of wild 
men and wild beasts, was two years later a fruitful 
field, covered with rice, cocoa, cassavas, yams, 
plantains, and bananas. He saw the vilest vices 
and most abhorrent practices give place to habits of 
industry and virtue.'^ But he was not satisfied 
with what he saw. If Christianity had done so 
much for the people, it must be made to do still 
more. So he called Mr. Johnson to him and 
ordered him to hasten the baptism of all the people. 
Carefully and patiently Mr. Johnson explained that 
he '' could baptize none but those whose hearts God 
had touched.'' The governor was angry. He 

[64] 



SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

threatened to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
on the ground that the missionary sent out to make 
Christians refused to do so. Again the exxjlanation 
was given that ^Hhere is One only who can make 
Christians, and he could and would baptize none 
but those whom he believed God had thus wrought 
upon.'' When the governor saw that the faithful 
missionary was not to be moved from his stand, he 
called him a fanatic and left him in anger. 

By the illness of his wife Mr. Johnson was com- 
pelled to return to England for a time. During his 
absence the work at Hogbrook was given over to a 
substitute sent out for the purpose. His methods 
were so unwise that when the missionary returned 
he found the school abandoned, the church all but 
dead, the people scattered. Euins were everywhere. 
^' The church tower and the schoolhouse, which was 
being roofed in when he left, were now leveled to 
the ground ; the other schoolhouse, intended for the 
boys, was pulled down as far as the windows, and 
the fences were down about the yard and garden 
and the cultivated field. The hospital was as he 
had feft it, no progress having been made, and all 
else, including the church building, was in a most 
deplorable state. In fact, the town was scarcely 
recognizable.'' 

Mr. Johnson was bitterly grieved, but his humble 
spirit was shown by a letter to London, in which he 
said : 

^'I pity Mr. , and heartily forgive him, 

and pray that, if he gO(\s out again elsewhere, he 
may be possessed of a more humble spirif 

[65] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



Again the promise that came to him in the days 
of his distress before his conversion helped him. 
Once more he called upon God, and once more the 
promise of deliverance was fulfilled. The scattered 
church was regathered, and in a surprisingly brief 
time everything was as before the disastrous absence, 
and better. 

The experience was good for the missionary, and 
it was good for the converts. One of the negroes 
one day said to him : 

'^ Suppose somebody beat rice ; he fan it, and all. 
the chaff fly away, and the rice get clean. Now, 
massa, we be in that fashion since you gone. God 
fan us that time for sure.'^ 

This remarkable ability of those who had so 
recently given up their fetishes to appreciate the 
truth was shown by another convert, who asked for 
baptism, saying : 

'' Me pray to God the Holy Ghost to take me to 
Jesus, him to take me to the Father.'' 

Official notice was taken of the remarkable trans- 
formation wrought by God's blessing on the work of 
Mr. Johnson and his native associates. In a report 
sent to the home government the local authorities 
gave this remarkable testimony : 

'' Let it be considered that not more than three or 
four years have passed since the greater number of 
Mr. Johnson's population were taken out of the 
holds of slave ships, and who can compare their 
present condition with that from which they were 
rescued without seeing manifest cause to exclaim, 
' The hand of heaven is in this ! ' Who can con- 

[GG] 



SEVEN YEARS IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA 

trast the simple and sincere Christian worship which 
precedes and follows their daily labors with the 
groveling and malignant superstition of their 
original state — their gregrees, their red water, their 
witchcraft, and their devil's houses — without feel- 
ing and acknowledging a miracle of good which the 
immediate interposition of the Almighty alone 
could have wrought 1 And what greater blessing 
could man or nation desire or enjoy than to have 
been made the instruments of conferring such sub- 
lime benefits on the most abject of the human 
race V 

A little later the chief justice observed that ^^ ten 
years before, when the population of the colony was 
but four thousand, there were forty cases in the 
calendar for trial ; but that now, with a population 
of sixteen thousand, there were but six cases.'' 
Further, there was not one case from any of the 
villages under the care of the missionary or the 
schoolmaster. 

The work grew rapidly. The church was en- 
larged to accommodate two thousand, but still it 
would not accommodate the crowds. Interest in 
the missionary society increased. At a single meet- 
ing ten pounds were given by the people out of 
their poverty. 

And all this had been accomplished in seven 
years. At the end of that time the missionary's 
health was so feeble that he was ordered home for 
rest and change. He did not live to complete the 
voyage, but — at less than forty years of age — passed 
from earth to heaven. 

[67] 



VIII 

THE PUBLIC LIFE OF WASHINGTON 
GLADDEN 

Hoio a Printer'^ s Apprentice Became a Leader of Men 

In the story of his life Washington Gladden 
frankly owns that he is unable to tell of world- 
famous ancestors. One of his great-grandfathers 
was a member of Washington's bodyguard, but he 
had no other claim to distinction, except that he 
trained his children to love honest work. As a 
shoemaker his son earned a scanty living for the 
family in which Washington's father was reared. 
As his mother's father also was a shoemaker, he 
was fond of quoting these lines of John G. Saxe : 

Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, 
Your family thread you can't ascend 
Without great reason to apprehend 
You may find it waxed at the other end, 
By some plebeian vocation. 

In a home in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, ennobled 
by the heritage of honest toil, Washington Gladden 
was born February 11, 1836. His father was a 
schoolmaster, so he had little difficulty in learning 
to read ; when two years and a half old he was able 
to take his turn in reading Bible verses at family 
prayers. 

[68] 



THE PUBLIC LIFE OF WASHINGTON GLADDEN 

The father died when the son was six years old, 
but the two had been such inseparable companions 
that the memory of his words and ways has always 
remained fresh in the son's mind. *' I remember," 
he says, ^'the larks I had with him; toddling to 
school in the winter on the crust of the deep snow, 
which held me when he broke through at every step 
and I laughed merrily at him ; sitting on the back 
of our black woolly cow, where he held me firm, 
and laughed at me ; walking to church in the sum- 
mer time.'' 

After his father's death his mother went with her 
son to a former home in Owego, New York. The 
boy's impression of the country traversed during 
the journey was not very pleasant, as it was made 
in a sleigh in the dead of winter. But more trying 
still was the trip made a little later from Owego to 
liis grandfather's home in Massachusetts. As he 
was the guest of a farmer who was going to Massa- 
chusetts he could only grin and bear the discomforts 
of which he speaks feelingly : 

'^The journey of perhaps two hundred and fifty 
miles was made on a one-horse buggy of somewhat 
spacious dimensions, which carried a small trunk 
behind the single seat whereon sat the farmer with 
a babe in his arms, and which admitted a round 
cheese box next to the dashboard, that held the pro- 
visions for the journey and served as a seat for me. 
How many days we were on the road I do not 
remember; it must have been a week. What a 
weariness it was ! The roads were rough, the inns 
primitive, the weather often harsh, and a small boy 

[G9] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



of seven who sat numb and cramped through all 
those days of torture might well be skeptical con- 
cerning the pleasure of travel. '' 

Just once during the week was a railway train 
sighted. Then the driver tried to make his horse 
run a race with the engine, but soon was compelled 
to own himself hopelessly defeated. 

During the year's stay in Massachusetts he had 
the first of many childhood experiences as a worker 
for wages. When he was eight years old he toiled 
from early morning till late at night, heaping up the 
sheaves of rye for a village farmer. At night, when 
he stood with other workers to receive his pay, he 
was given a half cent. Because he could not spend 
it (nothing could be bought for that modest amount) 
he kept the coin in his pocket, until it was lost. 

On his way home to Owego he had his first ex- 
jDerience of railway travel. The car in which he 
rode was a box without springs, and he sat on a 
bench which had neither cushion nor back. The 
ride was one long torture, and he rejoiced when it 
was possible for him to transfer to a slow canal boat. 

AVhen he reached home, he was apprenticed to an 
uncle, on whose farm he was to work until he was 
twenty-one. For his services he was to receive 
board and clothes and have the privilege of attend- 
ing a few short hours of school. When he came of 
age he was to have a suit of clothes and his choice 
of a good horse or one hundred dollars in cash. 

There was no lack of work on that pioneer farm. 
The owner set the example of ceaseless industry, 
and others followed his lead. Before long the 

[70] 



i 



THE PUBLIC LIFE OF WASHINGTON GLADDEN 

young apprentice knew bow to use the axe and the 
saw, the hoe and the spade and the rake. Then 
came the necessity of mastering the scythe and the 
plow and the grain cradle. Before he was sixteen 
he was doing a man's work. 

Although the schools were primitive, he was able, 
before he was sixteen, to complete a very satisfac- 
tory course. During the earlier terms he was handi- 
capped by the system which permitted each pupil 
to study his lessons in whatever books his parents 
had for him. In later terms, however, he was for- 
tunate to have as teacher a young medical student 
who taught in the winter in order to earn money for 
his own school expenses. His more modern notions 
enabled the ambitious boy to make more rapid 
progress. 

When he was sixteen his uncle proposed that he 
leave the farm, not because he could be spared well, 
but because it was apparent that his tastes lay in 
other directions. Learning that the proprietor of 
the Owego Gazette wanted a boy, he applied for the 
position and was accepted as printer's apprentice. 
He was to live with his employer for four years, and, 
in addition to board and washing, was to receive in 
successive years thirty, forty, sixty and one hundred 
dollars. 

Dreams of the literary career which he thought 
was to open out before him in his new position were 
dashed when he was set at the usual drudgery of tlie 
latest comer in a printing oiHice. He soon learned 
that he had more to do with sweeping the office, 
tending the fires, running the old Washington hand- 

[71] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



press, washing rollers, scrubbiug the forms, and 
running errands than with typesetting. When 
first a stick and rale were put in his hands he felt 
happy, and he went to the case at every ox)por- 
tunity. 

Patting in type the copy prepared by others 
made him ambitious. After a few months he 
gathered courage to prepare a budget of local news 
and gossip, which he laid on the editor's table. 
Almost immediately this was brought to his case, 
and he was instructed to set it up. Thereafter he 
was encouraged to do local work whenever he 
wished. Soon he was looked upon as one of the 
editorial staff. 

It was inevitable that politics should come to de- 
mand a larger share of the time of the young news- 
paper man than mere local news. Those were the 
days when the sentiment of the North was crystalliz- 
ing in opposition to slavery. Owego had its part in 
the discussion on the great subject of conversation 
and editorial writing. The young apprentice re- 
joiced in the opportunity to listen to discussions and 
to report them for the paper. When he was eight- 
een he was actively engaged in political affairs, for 
then he became secretary of the local lodge of Good 
Templars. The lodges of the neighboring counties 
were uniting on a candidate for the legislature, and 
it was Gladden's duty to conduct the correspondence 
with other lodges, and so to be in the thick of the 
contest. When the candidate was elected, in 1854, he 
felt that he had had some worthy part in the result. 

In 1855, the budding politician, having united 
[72] 



THE PUBLIC LIFE OF WASHINGTON GLADDEN 

with tbe Ohurcb, began to make defiuite plans for a 
larger future than be bad yet dreamed of. The way 
was opened for him to enter Owego Academy. Be- 
yond the academy he thought of college, and after 
that the Christian ministry was his dream. 

He threw himself into his academic work with all 
the ardor that bad characterized him in tbe printing 
office. For six days in the week he averaged 
fourteen or fifteen hours a day in study. He found 
bis chief delight in Latin and Greek. His interest 
in these studies was all tbe greater because his read- 
ing of ancient heroes was mingled with the reports 
that came to the retired village of stirring events in 
Kansas and elsewhere on tbe border. He excelled 
in tbe classroom, but he also took a prominent part 
in village politics. In one campaign be wrote a 
song which was used by tbe Eepublican Glee Club 
as a part of all its programs. 

In September, 1856, be was able to enter Will- 
iams College as a sophomore. There be remained 
for three years, rejoicing in tbe opportunity to 
study under such a man as Mark Hopkins. His 
expenses for tbe entire period were less than nine 
hundred dollars. His board cost him only a little 
more than two dollars a week. In tbe long winter 
vacation, from Tbanksgiving until late in January, 
he taught school, rejoicing in this arrangement of 
tbe school year made for the benefit of self-support- 
ing students. 

His knack for newspaper work made him an ac- 
ceptable reporter of college doings for the Springtleld 
Eepublican. The editor was J. G. Tlolland, and tbe 

[73] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



privilege of having his writings appear on the same 
page with Dr. Holland's helped the student ; he felt 
humbled by the thought that there was such a con- 
trast between his efforts and the work of the master. 
Once the editor printed a few lines of praise in con- 
nection with a poem of his, and he was encouraged 
to go on in the difficult way he had marked out for 
himself. 

College days were succeeded by a brief experience 
as principal of the Owego schools, where he hoped 
to earn funds for his professional studies. But he 
was not permitted to carry out his plans. He was 
persuaded by the Susquehannah association of Con- 
gregational ministers to accept licensure in order 
that he might be of use as a speaker at schoolhouses 
and in small churches. In January, 1860, the Con- 
gregational Church at LeEoysville, Pennsylvania, 
asked him to become pastor. The school was given 
up, and the call was accepted. 

He was tempted to regret this hasty beginning of 
13astoral responsibilities when, on arriving at his 
field, he was informed that he had been announced 
to preach that evening, as well as on the two even- 
ings following, and twice on the succeeding Sunday. 
He had no stock of sermons, and he had enjoyed 
little schooling that would help him in the emer- 
gency. Yet he had to plunge in. He did his best, 
thinking to rest and study the next week. But the 
special meetings were continued, and for eight 
weeks he repeated the strenuous program of the first 
week, varying it sometimes by adding one or two 
more services. 

[74] 



THE PUBLIC LIFE OF WASHINGTON GLADDEN 

Soon he decided that after a year or two of prac- 
tical work he would go to the seminary for the in- 
struction he needed. Again his plans were not 
destined to be carried out. In May, 1860, he was 
settled in Brooklyn, in charge of the First Congre- 
gational Church. He thought he would be able to 
take studies at Union Theological Seminary in con- 
nection with his pastorate, but once more his dream 
of a seminary training was left unfulfilled ; the 
claims made by the church on his time were too 
great. 

The burden of a city pastorate during the early 
days of the Civil War, when the seutiments of 
many about him were wavering, and he was under 
the necessity of doing what he could to lead the peo- 
ple in loyal paths, speedily became too great for 
him, and he was threatened with a nervous break- 
down. Leaving Brooklyn, he took a small church 
in Morrisania. Here he remained to the close of 
the war. As the demands on his time were not so 
great here, it was possible for him to attend lectures 
at Union Seminary and read in the city libraries. 

In 1866 he became pastor of the Congregational 
Church of North Adams, Massachusetts, a Victory 
town where he had abundant opportunity to study 
the problems of capital and labor which, even then, 
were beginning to claim a share of the attention of 
thinking men. 

Five years in the Massachusetts field, where the 
pastor made many excursions into literature, were 
followed by four years as an editor of the New York 
Independent, This employment was most congenialj 

[75] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



but it was given up for conscientious reasons ; he 
could not reconcile himself to connection with a 
paper which frequently printed advertisements as 
if they were editorial opinion. When his remon- 
strances were not effectual in bringing about a 
change, he returned to the pastorate. During eight 
years in Springfield, Massachusetts, he found him- 
self once more in the midst of labor problems, and 
he did his best to apply the principles of the gospel 
to their solution. 

The crowning service of his life began in Colum- 
bus, Ohio, in 1882, where he became pastor of the 
Congregational church. Since that time he has 
been not only a pastor and preacher of ever-increas- 
ing power, and an author of note (twenty-six of the 
thirty-two volumes credited to him have been writ- 
ten since 1882) but he has been a pastor to be reck- 
oned with in labor controversies, and he had had a 
hand in correcting many political abuses. Two in- 
stances of this political service are notable. 

Until 1884 the Ohio state election always preceded 
the national election by a month. Owing to this 
fact, every four years the state was in turmoil from 
June to KTovember, business suffered, the coloniza- 
tion of illegal voters was invited, the period of 
bribery was prolonged, and public morality was in- 
jured. There were many who saw the evils of the 
system, but there was no one courageous enough to 
tackle the situation till Dr. Gladden came to the 
city. 

Now it requires a brave man to think of persuad- 
ing a state to amend the constitution, all by him- 

[76] 



THE PUBLIC LIFE OF WASHINGTON GLADDEN 

self. But Dr. Gladden has always been known as a 
brave man. He made a beginning by writing a 
petition asking for the change, and secured the sig- 
natures of a number of leading men from both 
parties. This was printed in the newspapers, as 
well as in circular form, and was mailed at his own 
expense and by his own hand to representative men 
in every county. The people took hold with such 
a vim that the legislature was p'ersuaded to submit 
the amendment. The people promptly ordered it. 
''It was all done without holding a single public 
meeting, or making a speech, or appointing a com- 
mittee,'' Dr. Gladden has said. '' It cost me a few 
dollars for printing and postage, and it cost nobody 
else, so far as I know, one cent." 

Again, in 1900, he rendered signal service on 
learning that a ring had been formed among the 
members of the city council, whose terms were then 
expiring, to reelect themselves and to levy tribute, 
in the coming council, on those public-service cor- 
porations which would be applying to that council 
for an extension of their franchises. Dr. Gladden 
announced himself as a candidate for the council in 
opposition to the member from his ward, who was 
a gang man. He did not canvass for the place, but 
his neighbors were glad of the chance to elect him. 
He served two years, making some mistakes, but 
taking a useful part in the battle for the public with 
the street railway company, the gas company, the 
electric light company, and several interurban rail- 
way companies. 

Thus for more than fifty years, in Pennsylvania, 
[77] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



in Massachusetts, in Xew York, and in Ohio, Dr. 
Gladden has been serving his fellow men in the 
church, in society, in politics. The dreams of the 
boy in the Owego i^rinting office have been abun- 
dantly fulfilled. 



[78] 



IX 

CALLED TO SAVE SOULS 

The Strenuous Life of John Wesley 

^' If men may be measured by the work they have 
accomplished, John Wesley can hardly fail to be re- 
corded as the greatest figure that has appeared in 
the religious world since the days of the Eeforma- 
tion.'' 

Because this judgment of John Ei chard Green, 
the historian of the English people, has been so 
universally indorsed, there was wide-spread interest 
in the celebration, on June 17, 1903, of the two- 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of the founder 
of Methodism. 

Every biographer of this Christian hero dwells at 
length on the influence of his mother, Susannah 
Wesley, in shaping his life. She was a remarkable 
woman. The mother of nineteen children, she 
found time to train every member of her household 
to right-living. In the midst of great poverty, her 
trust in God did not falter. The lessons learned 
from her, John Wesley never forgot. 

When John was five years old, the rectory was 
burned, and the lad was saved when death seemed 
certain. In her journal, the mother recorded her 
determination '^to be more particularly careful of 
the soul of this child '' whom God had so mercifully 

[79] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



provided for, and 'Ho endeavor to instill into his 
mind the principles of true religion and virtue.'' 
Then she added the prayer, ''Lord, give me grace 
to do it sincerely and prudently, and bless my at- 
tempts with good success." 

Years later, when " the brand plucked from the 
burning," as she lovingly called him, was a poor 
student at Oxford, she wrote him a letter of which 
any son might be proud : — 

^'Dear Jack : 

" I am uneasy because I have not heard from 
you. If all things fail, I hope God will not forsake 
us. We have still his good providence to depend 
on. Dear Jack, be not discouraged. Do your duty. 
Keep close to your studies and hope for better days. 
Perhaps, after all, we shall pick up a few crumbs 
for you before the end of the year. 

"Dear Jack, I beseech Almighty God to bless 
thee. 

" Susannah Wesley." 

Samuel Wesley, the father, while rather imprac- 
tical, was a man of earnest purpose. The memory 
of his life of self-denying labor in the ministry 
surely had its influence in nerving "Son John " to 
the deeds which startled England during half a 
century. He never forgot his mission to men. On 
one occasion, he w^as thrown into prison for debt. 
Instead of repining, he looked about him for oppor- 
tunities of helping his fellow prisoners. In his own 
words, "I don't despair of doing some good here, 
and it may be I can do more in this parish than in 
my old one ; for I have leave to read prayers every 
morning and afternoon here in the prison, and to 

[80] 



CALLED TO SAVE SOULS 



preach once a Sunday. And I'm getting acquainted 
with my brother jail-birds as fast as I can, and shall 
write to London, next post, to the Society for Prop- 
agating Christian Knowledge, which, I hope, will 
send me some books to distribute." 

When, at the age of eleven, John Wesley went to 
the famous Charterhouse School and found himself 
the butt of cheap jokes because he was a charity 
student, he was the better able to bear his trials be- 
cause of the training of such a father and mother. 

At Oxford, his circumstances were somewhat 
better, especially when, by hard study, he won a 
fellowship. The income from this was, at first, 
thirty pounds a year. Of this sum, he gave away 
two pounds. When, later, he received sixty pounds, 
he did not increase his expenditures, but gave away 
thirty-two pounds. One day, when he had no money 
to give a hungry beggar, he lamented his prodigal 
expenditures on himself, and resolved to be more 
careful ! This early habit of generous giving he re- 
tained through life. When he was eighty-six years 
old, he wrote in his journal : ^' I save all I can, to 
give all I can : that is, all I have.'' 

While at Oxford, he gathered a number of his 
fellows about him and formed a club for purposes 
of profit to themselves and help to others. The 
members read together, visited the sick and the 
prisoners, and i^rayed with condemned criminals. 
Those who did not understand their purpose, or who 
felt condemned by their example, ridiculed them. 
The name '^The Holy Club" was given to them by 
some; by others they were called '^Methodists.'' 

[81] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



Not satisfied with ridicule, many of their opponents 
persecuted the earnest young men. Wesley wrote 
his father of the persecution. In his answer, Samuel 
Wesley exhorted him to steadfastness, and added 
that since his son had been called the father of The 
Holy Club, he might be called the grandfather, and 
he would glory in the name. 

After the death of his father, Wesley was urged 
to go as a missionary to Georgia, then a new settle- 
ment. He was attracted by the call, but thought 
he ought not to leave his widowed mother. How- 
ever, when she learned his desire, she bade him go, 
saying : ^' Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice that 
they were all so employed, though I should never 
see them more.'' 

The visit to America turned the course of the 
young minister's life. He declared in his journal 
that he went to Georgia hoping to save his soul by 
works of self-denial and righteousness. But, on the 
voyage out from England, he met some Moravian 
missionaries, who opened his eyes to the fact that 
there was something lacking in his spiritual expe- 
rience. When, after some years in America, he re- 
turned home, he realized that he needed to know 
more of salvation by faith. On the advice of Peter 
Bohler, a young Moravian, he determined to preach 
with all his might the gospel of faith, in the hope 
that the light would break into his own soul. His 
purpose was carried out, and, on May 24, his hope 
was realized. He called that the date of his true 
conversion. 

In the meantime, he had preached so earnestly 

[82] 



CALLED TO SAVE SOULS 



and personally that the doors of many Established 
churches were closed to him. He was even refused 
admission to the old church at Epworth. There- 
upon he stepped on his father's tomb and preached 
with such earnestness and power that many were 
converted. 

Shut out of the Church of England, to which he 
had always been loyal, but determined to obey God's 
call to preach, he found his opportunities in the 
streets and in the fields. Out-of-door preaching 
was not easy for a man of his traditions and train- 
ing. All his life he had been, as he said, ^^so 
tenacious of every point relating to decency and 
order'' that he was tempted to think ^^ the saving 
of souls almost a sin if not done in a church." But 
he saw his duty clearly, and, with the sublime 
statement, '' All the world is my parish," he began 
his laborious travels, which lasted forty years, to 
and fro throughout Eugland, Ireland, and Scotland. 

Augustine Birrell has called Wesley's own story 
of these years '^ the most amazing record of human 
exertion ever penned or endured," and adds : '^ He 
made his journeys for the most part on horseback. 
He paid more turnpikes than any man who ever 
bestrode a beast. Eight thousand miles was his 
annual record for many a long year, during each of 
which he seldom preached less frequently than a 
thousand times. He visited again and again the 
most out-of-the-way districts, the remotest corners 
of England, places which to-day lie far from the 
S(^arclier after the picturesque. None but the stur- 
diest of i^edestrians, the most determined of cyclists, 

[83] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



can retrace the steps of Wesley and his horse, and 
stand by the rocks and the natural amphitheaters 
in Cornwall and Northumberland, in Lancashire 
and Berkshire, where he preached the gospel to the 
heathen.'' 

During these years of toil, the life of the itinerant 
preacher was often threatened by mobs which had 
been inflamed against him. One evening he was 
captured by roughs. They held him by the collar, 
while one man struck him in the breast, and another 
on the mouth, until he was covered with blood. 
Then they dragged him to a neighboring village 
and carried him through the main street. Un- 
daunted, he asked leave to preach. ^'No! no!" 
was the reply ; '^ knock his brains out ; kill him at 
once.'' Then he began to pray, whereupon one 
ruffian cried out, ^'I will spend my life for you ; 
follow me, and no one shall hurt a hair of your 
head." So, at ten o'clock that night, Wesley found 
himself in safe quarters, '' having lost only one flap 
of my waistcoat, and a little skin from my hands," 
as his journal records. 

Another experience he described as follows : 
''The rabble brought a bull they had been baiting, 
and strove to drive it among the people. But the 
bull was wiser than his drivers ; it ran on either 
side of us, while we quietly sang praise to God and 
prayed. They drove the bull against the table. I 
put aside his head with my hand, that the blood 
might not drop upon my clothes." On another oc- 
casion, ''they drove cows among the congregation, 
and threw stones, one of which struck me between 



[84] 



CALLED TO SAVE SOULS 



the eyes. Bat I felt no pain at all, and, when I had 
wiped away the blood, went on testifying that God 
hath not given us the spirit of fear." 

It has been estimated that Wesley traveled two 
hundred and ninety thousand miles in all, and 
preached more than forty thousand sermons, most 
of them in the open air. Yet he found time to read 
more than two thousand volumes, to edit a monthly 
magazine, and to write more than two hundred 
volumes, including works on history, philosophy, 
literature, electricity and theology. Some one has 
said with truth : ''Few men could have traveled as 
much as he, had they omitted all else. Few could 
have preached as much, without either travel or 
study. And few could have w^ritten and published as 
much, had they avoided both travel and preaching.'' 

A Mr. Fletcher, who traveled with him for a 
time, wrote: ^'Though oppressed with the weight 
of seventy years and the care of thirty thousand 
souls, he shames still, by his unabated zeal and im- 
mense labors, all the young ministers of England. 
He has generally blown the gospel trumpet and 
ridden twenty miles before the most of the pro- 
fessors, who despise his labors, have left their 
downy pillows." 

No wonder he wrote, after a quiet day in study 
at the home of a friend : ^^ How willingly could I 
spend the residue of a busy life in this delightful 
retirement. But 

** ' Man was not born in shades to lie. 

Up and be doin«j; ! Labor on, till death 
Sings a requiem to the parting soul.' '^ 
[85] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



He did labor on, until, at eighty-seven years of 
age, he preached his last sermon in the open air. 
A few months longer he continued his work, visit- 
ing some of the towns where mobs had sought to 
harm him. Here, as everywhere, he was given a 
hearty welcome, men of all classes thronging to hear 
him preach in the chapels. 

On February 3, 1791, he preached for the last 
time, concluding his sermon by singing words 
written by his brother Charles : — 

Oh, that without a liDgering groan 
I may that welcome word receive ; 

My body with my charge lay down, 
And cease at once to work and live. 

His prayer was answered. Four weeks later, the 
Father of Methodism passed away. His last words 
appear on his monument in Westminster Abbey : 

** The besfe of all is, God is with us.^' 



[86] 



THE APOSTLE TO THE LAO 

Daniel McGilvary^s Half Century of Eager Preaching 

Daniel McGilyary's Highland Scotch grand- 
parents emigrated from the Isle of Skye to North 
Carolina in 1789. There he was born May 16, 1828, 
the youngest of seven children. His mother died 
a few months later, and his father passed away 
when the boy was thirteen years old. But these 
thirteen years were enough to impress on the lad 
his father's trust in God. Training at the family 
altar and in the church, four miles away — to which 
every member of the family was expected to go 
every Sabbath — bore fruit when Daniel became a 
member of the old family church at Buffalo. 

After his father's death, Daniel, finding it neces- 
sary to make his own living, went to Pittsboro with 
a distant relative to learn the tailor's trade. At 
intervals he attended the Pittsboro Academy, and 
so was prepared for the invitation that came to him 
when he was seventeen to attend the celebrated 
Bingham School in Pittsboro, now located at Ashe- 
ville. North Carolina. With gratitude he accepted 
the principal's proposal to wait for him to pay all 
bills till he should complete his career by teaching 
and earn the money required. 

[87] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



In accordance with the plans made for him, he 
began teaching immediately after his graduation in 
1849. For one year he was in charge of a new 
preparatory school in Pittsboro, and for three years 
more he was iDrincipal of the academy in which he 
had been a pupil before entering the Bingham 
School. While teaching, he served as elder in the 
Pittsboro church and superintendent of the Sunday 
school. 

During his three years at Princeton Theological 
Seminary, which immediately followed the years of 
teaching, he tried to persuade himself that his serv- 
ices were needed on the home mission field. In 
order to prove this to his own satisfaction, he 
spent the summer of 1855 in Texas as agent of the 
American Sunday-school Union, but he was dis- 
appointed in his quest of a field where Christ was 
not preached. 

On returning to the seminary he listened to an 
appeal made by Dr. S. H. House in behalf of Siam, 
then recently opened to the gospel by the action 
of King Maha Mongkut. ^^My hesitation was 
ended," he said. '^ Here was not merely a village 
or a parish, but a whole kiugdom, just waking from 
its long, dark, hopeless sleep. Every sermon I 
preached there might be to those who had never 
heard that there is a God in heaven who made 
them, or a Saviour from sin." With a classmate, 
Jonathan Wilson, he promised Dr. House to give 
the claims of Siam most serious thought. 

During the senior year another appointment was 
made to the Siam mission, and the young men 

[88] 



THE APOSTLE TO THE LAO 



thought they could listen to American calls, and 
Mr. McGilvary accepted an invitation to supply 
two churches near his old home. At the end of a 
year he was invited to become pastor. His old 
presbytery had dismissed him and arrangements 
were soon to be made for his ordination and in- 
stallation. 

Then came news from Siam. The missionary 
who had gone out immediately after the visit of 
Dr. House to the seminary was soon to return, an 
invalid. The meager force on the field would be 
still further weakened by necessary changes. 

Duty was clear. Mr. McGilvary asked for ap- 
pointment to Siam. When he went to the old home 
of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions at 
23 Center Street, he encountered on the steps his old 
classmate, Jonathan Wilson, who announced that 
he, too, was on his way to Siam and that Mrs. Wil- 
son was going along. The three sailed on the clip- 
per ship David Broivn^ on March 11, 1858. On 
June 20, 1858, they landed at the mission com- 
pound in Bangkok. 

While studying the language Mr. McGilvary was 
given charge of a class in the mission school. There 
were five boys and one girl, Tuan, whose family 
became one of the most influential in the church. 
Her two sons, the late Boon-Itt and Elder Boon Yee 
of the First Church in Chiengmai, have been among 
the very best fruits of the mission. The teacher in- 
sisted that his share in their training was of the 
slightest ; this was only a sample of his modcsly. 

During these preliminary years the young missiou- 
[89] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



ary began those exploring trips through the country 
for which he became famous. His most importan^it. 
tour was made in 1859 to Petchaburi. He was 
asked by the Pra Pralat, or governor, to move to 
that city, where he might teach as much Christianity 
as he pleased, if he would teach the Pralat's sou 
English. He felt that the opening thus made could 
not be rejected, and, after his return to Bangkok, 
he soon completed preparations for removal. But 
an epidemic of cholera in Bangkok compelled him 
to change his plans, and Petchaburi was neglected 
for a time. But Mr. McGilvary, or Dr. McGilvary, 
as he soon became known, had pointed out the 
location, as he was later to point out the location 
for each of the present mission stations among the 
Lao, ^4ong before committees formally sanctioned 
the wisdom of his choice.'' 

Dr. and Mrs. House were later sent to Petchaburi, 
but a severe fall interfered with Dr. House's work, 
and it became necessary to send Dr. McGilvary in 
his place. In June, 1861, in company with another 
newly arrived missionary and his wife, he started 
for Petchaburi. But he was not to occupy the new 
home alone; with him was his wife, Sophie Eoyce 
Bradley, daughter of Dr. D. B. Bradley, whom he had 
married in Bangkok, December 6, 1860. In all his 
future work Mrs. McGilvary was a most effective 
helper. 

During his stay in Petchaburi, Dr. McGilvary 
became much interested in a colony of the Lao 
people in the city, who were employed as slaves on 
government works. They came from the Lao 

[9o'] 



THE APOSTLE TO THE LAO 



States to the north, bow a i3art of Siam, but then 
buffer states between Siam and Burma, nominally 
independent, but actually under the protection of 
the King of Siam. Work among them intensified 
the desire (already aroused by the Prince of Chi- 
engmai, whom Dr. McGilvary met just after his 
marriage) to do pioneer work among these cousins 
of the Siamese. 

More than two years after the beginning of 
residence in Petchaburi the way opened for a trip 
of exploration to distant Chiengmai. Bearing a 
passport and a letter from Bangkok, Dr. McGilvary, 
in company with Mr. Wilson, started. On the way 
they missed Prince Choa Kawilorot of Chiengmai by 
taking the canal while he took the river on his way 
to Bangkok. This was a fortunate occurrence, for 
the prince would probably have discouraged their 
mission. 

The journey, by boat and on elephant back, re- 
quired forty-nine days. As the missionaries passed 
through the country they preached the gospel. In 
Chiengmai they remained only ten days, ''but one 
day would have been sufficient to convince us," 
Dr. McGilvary wrote enthusiastically. ''I, at 
least, left it with the joyful hope of its becoming 
the field of my life work.^^ 

After the trip Mr. Wilson went at once to the 
United States, and tried to persuade another family 
to go to Siam with him for service in Chiengmai. 
He failed, and on returning to Siam, declared that 
lie could not go to the new station for another year. 
Dr. McGilvary felt that no further time could be 

[91] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



lost, SO he sought the Prince of Chiengmai, who was 
theu on a visit to Bangkok, and succeeded in secur- 
ing permission to enter his dominion. The prince 
promised a site for buildings, and protection in the 
work. On January 3, 1867, the difficult journey 
was undertaken. A month was required to toil up 
the thirty-two rapids beyond Eeheng. Chiengmai 
was reached on April 3, 1867. 

The prince was absent and the missionary family 
was compelled to take up quarters in a public guest 
house outside the city. A family of six was to be 
cared for in a single room ! Here they remained 
for a year. 

Visitors trooped from the city to see the strange 
foreigners. These attentions were not always pleas- 
ant, but the missionaries were eager to use their op- 
portunity. They told their errand, and laid the 
foundations of future success as they presented the 
gospel to their visitors. Possibly the very first 
convert heard the message from patient Mrs. Mc- 
Gilvary at one of those meetings. 

Dr. McGilvary was not a physician, but he soon 
had opportunity to administer simple remedies to 
the people, and his reputation was increased by his 
success. It was five hundred miles to the nearest 
physician, so he could not resist the pleas of the 
sufferers from goiter, then a very common malady 
there. A simple ointment proved to be most effec- 
tive in the early stages of the disease. 

A little later an epidemic of smallpox opened the 
way for the vaccination of hundreds. The treat- 
ment was so successful that the missionary was 

[92] 



THE APOSTLE TO THE LAO 



asked to vaccinate the grandson of the reigning 
prince. Unfortunately, the lad died from dysen- 
tery soon afterwards. The parents did not blame 
the missionaries, but the prince felt that they were 
responsible. 

One by one men and women accepted Christ, 
among these being a native doctor and a Buddhist 
leader. The prince was displeased because of their 
defection from the old religion ; he felt this w^as a 
prophecy that his power would soon wane. He 
took advantage of a failure in the rice crop to say 
that the missionaries were bringing disaster on the 
country. Then he plotted the death of the native 
Christians. Pretending that they had ignored an 
order to bring in, each man, a slab of hewn timber 
to repair the city stockade, he had four of them 
arrested, carried to the jungle and clubbed to death. 

The first knowledge the missionaries had of the 
trouble was the desertion of their servants. When 
they learned the truth they began to fear that their 
own lives would be sacrificed. Dr. McGilvary 
wrote of this time of trial : ^' We actually began 
writing the history of those days on the margin of 
books in the library, so that if we were never heard 
from again, some of the precedent circumstances of 
our end might then, perhaps, come to light.'' 

Finally word was sent to Bangkok, and on No- 
vember 26, 1869, a Eoyal Commissioner arrived to 
inquire into the prince's conduct. At first the 
ruler declared he was within his rights, but when 
Dr. McGilvary boldly denounced his action, he 
owned that he had killed the men because they had 

[93] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



become Christians, and he said he would kill every- 
one who did the same. The commissioner advised 
the missionaries to withdraw, and Dr. McDonald 
and Mr. Wilson, who had come to Dr. McGilvary's 
assistance, desired to do so. But the pioneer felt 
that he must not abandon the field. So, though re- 
port was sent to America that the mission had been 
broken up, Dr. McGilvary still held the fort. The 
prince gave permission for this till he went to 
Bangkok, and returned to his capital. 

But the prince never returned. He died on the 
journey home. A new ruler took his place who 
was more favorable to the missionaries. Their 
work was undisturbed. They were permitted to 
build new homes in place of the bamboo houses in 
which Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. McGilvary had suf- 
fered torture by reason of the dust from the borers 
in the bamboo which constantly filled the air and 
poisoned the lungs. In company with Dr. Vroo- 
man, the mission's first physician, an extended tour 
of exploration was completed. 

An important stage in the progress of the mission 
among the Lao was marked by the marriage, in 
1878, of two Christians. According to custom, the 
tribal head of the family demanded payment of the 
spirit-fee, designed to furnish a feast to the spirits. 
(The Lao were in bondage to their belief in spirits.) 
The patriarch in this case was a bitter opponent of 
Christianity. The fee was refused, as a matter of 
Christian principle, and appeal was made to the 
commissioner of the King of Siam, who had recently 
been sent to the country. He advised an appeal to 

[94] 



THE APOSTLE TO THE LAO 



the prince, and from him to the Uparat, a relative 
of the prince, who had a good deal to say about the 
conduct of affairs. The appeal was in vain ; the 
Uparat thought he could put a stop to the advance 
of Christianity by standing in the way of the mar- 
riage of the Christians. The marriage was post- 
poned, and an appeal was made to the King of 
Siam, by the kind offices of the United States Con- 
sul. As a result the king issued an edict of re- 
ligious toleration, which marked the end of the 
mission's second period of struggle. 

Then began the period of marvelous development 
and growth. Tours of exploration were made to all 
parts of the Lao State, and station after station was 
planted. Some of these tours were made in com- 
pany with missionary colleagues, while native evan- 
gelists were the only companions at other times. 
One long tour, in 1890, Dr. McGilvary made witli 
his daughter. Everywhere he went he preached 
the gospel. Men and women turned from their 
old ways by scores and by hundreds, until the 
Chiengmai Church became one of the strongest 
cliurches in mission lands, and a number of othei* 
stations had strong organization. Schools for girls 
were developed, and a boys' school was started, 
which became the Prince Eoyal's College, where, in 
1906, the Crown Prince of Siam laid the foundation 
stone of the new recitation hall. 

So engrossed was Dr. McGilvary in his varied 
work that during fifty-three years of service in Siam 
and among the Lao he took but thi-ee fuiloughs. 
Through all the years Mrs. McGilvary was his right 

[95] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



hand. When, on December 6, 1910, the veteran 
missionaries celebrated their golden wedding, the 
King of Siam sent a congratulatory message and 
they received a large silver tray, on which was en- 
graved : ^^The Christian people of Chiengmai to 
Dr. and Mrs. McGilvary, in memory of your having 
brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to us forty-three 
years ago." 

Even at the age of eighty-two Dr. McGilvary was 
not ready to lay down his work. He toiled to the 
very end and made his last itinerating journey but a 
short time before his death. Only a little while 
after his return he passed from earth to heaven. 
This was on August 23, 1911. 

^' The Lao country had never seen such a funeral 
as that which marked the close of this memorable 
life,'^ Dr. Arthur J. Brown writes. ^^ Princes, 
Governors, and High Commissioners of State sor- 
rowed with multitudes of common people. The 
business of Chiengmai was suspended, offices were 
closed and flags hung at half-mast as the silent form 
of the great missionary was borne to its last rest 
ing-place in the land to which he was the first 
bringer of enlightenment and whose history can 
never be written without large recognition of his 
achievements.'' 

This summary of his life work is also in the words 
of Dr. Brown : '' He laid the foundations of medical 
work, introducing quinine and vaccination among a 
people scourged by malaria and smallpox, a work 
which has now developed into five hospitals and a 
leper asylum. He began educational work, which 

[96] 



THE APOSTLE TO THE LAO 



is now represented by eight boarding-schools and 
twenty-two elementary schools, and is fast expand- 
ing into a college, a medical college, and a theolog- 
ical seminary. He was the evangelist who won its 
first converts, founded the first church, and had 
a prominent part in founding twenty other churches, 
and in developing a Lao Christian church of 4,205 
communicants.'' 



[97] 



XI 

THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD WAS 
HIS PULPIT 

'^ Maclaren of Manchester '' and His Tremendous 
Service 

Alexander Maclaren, being a Scotchman, 
might have been born in a Covenanter family but 
for the fact that his grandmother was dismissed 
from membership because she absented herself from 
her own church that she might hear a missionary 
sermon. 

Alexander was eleven years old (he was born 
February 12, 1826) when he was baptized. Four 
or five years later, when the family removed to 
London, and he began to study for the ministry, he 
was an ^intellectual young man, with delicate fea- 
tures, broad forehead, and pointed chin — decidedly 
the face which would interest any student of physi- 
ognomy, not by its striking appearance so much as 
by its gentle charm." 

At once the young student began to make ad- 
dresses to Sunday schools. He was only seventeen 
when he preached his first sermon from the text, 
^'Whom having not seen, ye love.'^ Those who 
heard him felt that his father, who was himself 
a lay preacher of ability, had been right in his 

[98] 



THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD HIS PULPIT 

judgment that the boy had in him the making of a 
preacher. But he had another inheritance from his 
father in addition to aptitude for preaching. David 
Maclaren was a shrewd business man, and Alexander 
united business sagacity with preachiug ability. 

When young Maclaren appeared before the com- 
mittee of Stepney College, London, seeking admis- 
sion to the theological course, he surprised the 
examiners by the way in which he j)assed a rather 
stiff examination. 

Maclaren^s fellow students were attracted by him, 
in spite of his shy, retiring ways, and his aversion 
to student frolics. They soon made up their minds 
that he would be an unusually successful man. His 
attainments in Hebrew and in other studies seemed 
to justify this judgment. But it was when they 
heard him preach that they were most emphatic in 
their prophecies of the future. He was a thorough- 
going Bible student, but he delighted, at that early 
date, in the exposition of Scripture, which later 
made him famous. 

In connection with his theological studies, he 
worked for and secured his arts degree from the 
University of London. 

His services were so much in demand in the 
churches that he had few opportunities to hear the 
ministers of the city, but whenever he found this 
possible he would go to liear one or two speakers who 
attracted him. From them lie learned many things 
that made him even more acceptable to the 
churches. The people of Portland Chapel, South- 
ampton, were so pleased with him that they iu- 

[99] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



sisted that he become their pastor without waiting 
to complete his course. He accepted the call when 
he was only twenty years old. 

One who heard him in the days of that first pas- 
torate says that he " had a marvelous gift for going 
direct to the heart of any theme. He seemed to 
split a text into thi^ee divisions with such a certainty 
and ability that as you listened you could not con- 
ceive of the subject being divided to better advan- 
tage in any other way. If you had ever heard him 
preach on a text, you found it very difficult to for- 
get his way of treating the subject, and the result 
would be that you had to leave that text alone.'' 

The young minister may have had a city charge, 
but he did not have a metropolitan salary. The 
church building would seat eight hundred people, 
but the membership was only twenty ; the congrega- 
tion was only fifty, and they felt they could not pay 
more than eighty pounds, without a house. There 
was need, then, for the exercise of all his inherited 
business ability if he would make ends meet 

He was not dissatisfied with the conditions, how- 
ever. On the contrary, he was pleased that he was 
in a place where he could have time for study, and 
could ^' learn his business," to use his own expres- 
sion. ''I thank God that I was stuck down in a 
quiet, little obscure place to begin my ministry,*' he 
said in after years, when speaking of the years in 
Southami3ton. Once, at a breakfast attended by 
ministers, he said : '^ ^Yhat spoils half of you young 
fellows is that you get pitchforked into prominent 
positions at once, and then fritter yourselves away 

[100] 



THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD HIS PULPIT 

in all manner of little engagements that you call 
duties — going to this tea meeting, that anniversary, 
and other breakfast celebrations, instead of stoj)- 
ping at home and reading your Bibles and getting 
near to God. I thank God for the early days of 
struggle and obscurity.'' 

Things moved slowly at the chapel, but Maclaren 
was not discouraged. The ability to look on the 
humorous side of things that had attracted the atten- 
tion of his college mates now stood him in good stead. 
'^ During the first five years you could have had a 
pew all to yourself, and another for your hat,'' he 
said. 

Yet many of these pews were filled. The fame 
of the earnest youDg preacher spread through 
Southampton, and from all sections people came to 
hear him. 

From the first day of his ministry he was a hard 
student. He realized that '^the secret of success 
for a minister is that he shall concentrate his Intel - 
lectual force on the one work of preaching." He 
put into practice the idea he thus expressed. He 
was careful in the choice of his words. Frequently 
he w^ould pause in his sermon in order to select the 
exact word he wanted to express his meaning. It is 
said that when he found the word it was always 
worth the pause. Every day he translated a chapter 
in the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testa- 
ment Greek, and rose from the exercise ready for 
more of his wonderful expository sermons. 

He did not make the mistake of thinking that he 
could afford to confine himself to his study. He 

[101] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



delighted to go out to the seashore. He Avould 
frequently take a book and a lunch of cheese and 
biscuits and stroll into the country. From these 
walks he would return with thoughts that helped 
him to put the results of his morning study in help- 
ful and attractive form. 

It is api3arent, then, that he was not one of those 
who are looking for the path where life would be 
easiest. He did not want an easy life, and he did 
not sympathize with others who chose the way of 
least resistance. Once he put in words one of the 
moving imj)ulses of his life when he said to a com- 
pany of students: ^^ Every effort you make, every 
conscientious grappling with some obstinate prob- 
lem, every microscopic analysis of some obscure 
sentence, helps to strengthen faculties and form 
habits, without which you will never do all the 
good you might have done, because you will never, 
without these, be all the men you might have been.'' 

After twelve ripening years at Southampton, Dr. 
Maclaren went to Union Chapel, Manchester. In 
this field he had an advantage he did not have when 
beginning work at Southampton : he was not alone. 
Two years before he had married his cousin, who 
proved a wonderful help to him in every way. Of 
her the husband once said : " ^Ye read and thought 
together, ... we worked and bore together, 
and her courage and deftness made toil easy and 
charmed away difficulties. . . . She was my 
guide, my inspirer, my corrector, my reward. Of 
all human formative influences on my character and 
life, hers was the strongest and the best.^' 

[ 102 ] 



THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD HIS PULPIT 

Manchester \Yas won just as Southampton had been 
won. The chapel was crowded. To the prayer meet- 
ing came people from many other churches and from 
no church at all. It was not an unusual thing to 
see a Catholic priest present and taking delight in 
the wonderful exposition of Scrij)ture. Theological 
students came in numbers, counting these meetings 
an important part of their course. 

The church grew rapidly, but not more rapidly 
than the pastor. A handsome building was erected, 
and one after another three missions were started, 
which soon grew to impressive size. In all this ex- 
tension work Dr. Maclaren took part, but most of 
the details he left to other leaders, whom he seemed 
to know just how to choose and inspire. 

But it was as a preacher that Dr. Maclaren did 
his largest work. His preaching was with power, 
because he preached Christ. ''I have tried to 
preach Christ as if I believed in him," he said 
once. ^^I have tried to preach him as if I lived 
on him.'' The fruit of living on Christ during the 
week was apparent on Sunday, when the rich Bible 
truth flowed from his lips like water from a faucet, 
seemingly without effort. But it was because of the 
intense preparation that he was able to si)eak so 
freely. He did not write his sermons beyond the 
first two or three sentences, which were to ^^give 
the boat a shove off," as he said. Once he delivered 
a memorized address, but he resolved never to make 
the attempt again. On a few occasions he used a 
manuscript, but he chafed under the limitations of 
his paper, longing for the direct, electrical contact 

[103] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



with his hearers given by extemporaDeous speech, 
and this led him to abandon the plan. 

Sometimes he was complimented on his remark- 
able facility in speaking. On one such occasion he 
remarked that his facility had come only as the re- 
sult of toil. At Southampton he forced himself to 
gain command of style for his spoken sermons by 
the study of the English poets and other masters of 
style. On those long walks in the country, to which 
reference has been made, he would study a passage 
from one of his books. ^' Lying on the sward, or 
pacing up and down, he would declaim the immortal 
verse, until at last the wide vocabulary and the 
melody became part of his own mental being. In 
the evening he would sit up late into the night writ- 
ing with amazing industry reams of essays, volumes 
of literary studies, to be torn up in the morning. 
But these labors left their mark upon him, and they 
account for the vivid and perfect pictures, the clear 
and accurate phrasing, the finish and power of 
the sermons with which the Manchester ministry 
began." 

One evidence of his greatness was the fact that he 
knew his own limitations. He felt that he was not 
one of the ministers who could give his strength 
to many things. It was necessary to concentrate 
if he would work effectively. '^This one thing 
I do," was his motto. And he lived up to it. 
He was loath to accept public appointments. He 
seldom went to ^^ ministers' fraternals," as minis- 
ters' Monday meetings are called in Manchester. 
Whenever he felt that he could do this justly, he 

[ 104 ] 



THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD HIS PULPIT 

respouded to iDvitations to preach elsewhere in the 
city. But he was slow to respond to calls to preach 
in other cities. When invited to become pastor of 
London churches he turned resolutely away from 
the temptation, resolved to give his life to Man- 
chester. 

Fame came to him unsought, and it was unrecog- 
nized. He seemed surprised to think that the world 
should pay so much attention to him. When his 
first volume, ^'Sermons Preached in Manchester,^' 
was published, the reception given to it by critic 
and reader amazed him. The popularity of later 
volumes puzzled him. His humility was equaled 
by his appreciation of the good qualities of others. 
Once, after reading the life of D. L. Moody, he ex- 
claimed : ^^ What a wonderful man ! I seem to have 
done simply nothing in my long life." 

While he delighted in the thought of^pulpit work, 
preaching did not come easy to him. Frequently 
he was in great distress because the theme he had 
chosen for Sunday did not open out in his mind. 
Sometimes Sunday morning would come, and lie 
was still uncertain of his sermon. Then he would 
enter the pulpit and preach with power. After 
being comi)elled to listen to the praise which was 
always his reward (a reward for which he did not 
care) he was apt to go home feeling that he had 
failed. ''It is over,'' he would say. '' How I man- 
aged I cannot tell. I did my best, and I must leave 
it there.'' 

His unvarying attitude toward praise was shown 
when a dinner was given in honor of liis completion 

[105] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVxiST 



of fifty years in the ministry. He concluded a mod- 
est speech with these words from Thomas a Kempis : 
" Thou art none the holier because thou art praised, 
and none the worse because thou art censured. 
What thou art, thou art ; and it avails thee naught 
to be called any better than thou art in the sight of 
God." Then he added: "So I only say, while 
thanking you for your love and appreciation. '^ 

Two years later, on June 26, 1898, the fortieth 
anniversary of his pastorate in Manchester was ob- 
served. His text that day was: ^'I determined 
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, 
and him crucified. " One of his texts on the first 
Sunday of the pastorate was : ''We preach Christ 
and him crucified." And all through the years he 
had been true to his message. 

When he was seventy-four years old this pen 
picture of him was drawn, as he stood before a great 
congregation : 

''A little figure it is that stands there by the 
table, erect and tense under the burden of years, a 
little frail maj^be, but vigorous with spirit and life ; 
the face refined and time-worn, square of feature and 
cast, one thinks, in the Gladstonian mold ; hair 
iron gray and straight, lips firm, eyes burning, head 
nobly poised — a notable figure, this new one, a man 
of men. From the very first he claims and keeps ; 
draws one from amidst the multitude to take a place 
at his feet. Not a word is wasted. Slowly, almost 
deliberately, the Northern burr sounding in his 
voice with beautiful expression and sympathy, he 
reads the Scriptures, and the sentences come living 

[106] 



THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD HIS PULFIT 

from himself, wiuged with surety. He prays, and 
every plea rises true, imploring a God who surely 
is in the midst of us. He stands preaching, flushed 
now and warmed, every fiber braced, every gesture 
alive, his voice ringing vibrant ; and quite surely 
one knows that here, at last, is the true preacher — a 
man preaching from himself.'^ 

In 1901 Dr. Maclaren was, for the second time, 
president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. 
He was still in excellent health, and was able to 
preside at all the services with grace and power. 
The delegates delighted to give their honor to ^Hhe 
most famous Baptist minister in the world.'' 

It was not until he was seventy-seven years old, in 
1903, that he asked to be relieved of the pastorate. 
For twenty years he had had a capable assistant, 
who relieved him of many of the burdens of the 
parish. For several years he had himself preached 
only occasionally. 

His retirement was marked by this estimate by 
Dr. Eobertson Nicoll, editor of the British WeeJchj : 

^^ It is not too much to say that Dr. Maclaren lias 
altered the whole manner of British preaching. 
. . . To his own denomination he has been most 
loyal, and he never showed himself more heroic 
than in the patient drudgery he went through for 
the Baptist Century Fund.'' 

But his work was not yet done. From time to 
time he preached from his old pulpit. Two years 
later he was made president of the Baptist World 
Convention, which met in London in 1905, by the 
approval of every one of the delegates. In 1908 

[ 107 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



the semicentennial of his pastorate at Manchester 
was observed. Then, for two years, he gave him- 
self to the completion of the series of volumes of 
exposition of the Bible, which is a monument that 
men will not allow to perish. 

When, on May 5, 1910, came the end of the active 
life, the papers were full of his praise. The London 
Times said: '^Maclaren will take his place among 
the few great preachers. '' 



[108] 



XII 

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 

George GrenfelVs Experiences in England and in 
Africa 

It is said by those who know the people of Corn- 
wall that the word ^^ sha'n'f describes a prominent 
trait of their character. Not that they are neces- 
sarily bullheaded ; but they have a way of being 
very tenacious of their opinions, and when they 
make up their minds that a certain course of action 
should be pursued, they will pursue it. Naturally, 
then, an earnest Christian Cornishman is able to 
use and act the word ^^sha'n'f in a way most dis- 
concerting to the enemies of right-living. 

A young ^^sha'n't" was born at Penzance, in 
Cornwall, on August 21, 1849. His name was 
George Grenfell. How he became one of the world's 
foremost missionaries as well as one of the explorers 
who endured great hardships that the interior of 
Africa might be opened to Christian settlement, is 
a fascinating narrative that clearly illustrates how 
^^sha'n'f may be an indication not of obstinacy, 
but of sterling Christian character. 

George was a wholesome boy, who liked to have 
a good time. Like other boys, he was more tlian 
once severely punished for battling with companions 

[ loy ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



in defense of his own opinions. However, lie was 
more careful in the use of his fists after he became 
a Christian, when he was about thirteen years old. 

At once he began to think of devoting his life to 
mission work. Several years earlier he liad read 
Livingstone's first book, and the impression made 
was so strong that his thoughts turned naturally to 
Africa. The influence of a day-school teacher who 
was enthusiastic for foreign missionary work, and 
who lost no opportunity of presenting it attractively 
to the boys under his charge, and a laboring man, 
a teacher in the Sunday school, was a decided factor 
in fixing his thoughts on his life work. The laborer 
knew nothing but his Bible, but he knew that well ; 
and he knew boys. The boys loved him. Several 
of them would often rise early in order to walk with 
him to his work ; then they would meet him after 
the day's work was done, in order to have further 
converse with him. 

Grenfell was one of a band of boys who, under 
the guidance of this godly man, spent their Sundays 
in strenuous service. For three or four years, be- 
ginning when he was sixteen, the ordinary Sunday 
program began with a boys' prayer meeting at seven 
o'clock. Sunday school at nine-thirty was followed 
by preaching service. Next, tracts were distributed. 
Afternoon school was at two-thirty ; then visits 
were paid to two near-by hamlets, where tracts were 
distributed and an open-air service was held. Gren- 
fell' s work, in visiting the cottagers and inviting 
them to the open-air service, proved helpful to 
others, and an invaluable experience to himself. 

[110] 



THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 

The day ended with eveiiiug service, followed by a 
prayer meetiiig. 

When Grenfell was seventeen, he united with 
four of his companions in forming ^'The Blooms- 
bury Theological Class," which for two years met 
every week, then every two weeks, for the discussion 
of theological questions. At the first meeting he 
read a paper, entitled ^' A Few Eemarks on the 
Inspiration of the Bible.'' Again, he read a i^aper 
on ^^ Christian Amusements," which showed how 
carefully he was sajang ^^sha'n'f to himself. 
Note these sentences from the Minutes of the 
society. 

'^ He laid it down that a Christian might engage 
in that upon which he could conscientiously ask the 
blessing of God. Going into particulars, he ob- 
jected to theaters, concert halls, circuses, fairs, 
games of speculation, and all kinds of gambling. 
He saw no harm in the games of draughts and 
chess, nor in soirees, conversaziones, penny read- 
ings, etc., which he thought might be made to con- 
duce to good when properly managed.'' 

Mr. Grenfell's biographer relates that two mem- 
b(»rs of the society protested against the laxity of 
the stand thus taken ! 

On leaving school, Grenfell was apprenticed to a 
firm of hardware merchants. His work gave him 
splendid preparation for tlie mechanical side of the 
missionary careei* to wliich he was looking forward 
more earnestly than ever. But, not to deiW mis- 
sionary activity till the indefiuite future, he l)ecame 
active in a local missionary society, made mission- 

[111*] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



ary addresses at Sunda}' schools, and edited the 
society's magazine, Mission TTorJc, His request 
to be accepted as a missionary candidate was made 
in 1873, and he was almost immediately sent to the 
Baptist college at Bristol for jDreparation. In little 
more than a year he was sent with Alfred Sakts, 
who had long been one of his missionary heroes, to 
Cameroons, Africa. The thought of the deadly 
climate did not deter him, though friends warned 
him of the danger. Again, ability to say and 
mean ^^sha'n'f stood the young Christian in good 
stead. 

Arriving on the field in January, 1875, the young 
Cornishman at once began to teach in the school at 
Cameroons, where the English language was used. 
But he was not content with teaching. A slight 
knowledge of medicine and natural skill in rough 
surgery enabled him to treat many minor ailments 
of the natives, and even some that were more 
serious. In his journal he wrote, soon after his 
arrival : 

^'I am very happy at work here. I enjoy the 
performance of my duties, and God blesses me in 
them. I have my times of downheartedness (little- 
souledness), but I am in the right place and doing 
the right work. The consciousness of this is too 
deep-seated to allow any cloud to damp my ardor. 
I have had a month's fever. African fever is not a 
pleasant companion for long ; I took no services or 
classes during the time ; in fact, I could not." 

Within two years the death of his wife saddened 
him so that, for a time, he felt unequal to work. 

[112] 



THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 

Then he made up his mind not to give way to his 
grief, and once more took up his bnrden. In ad- 
dition to the recognized work of a missionary, his 
activities ranged from setting up a sawmill to ex- 
plorations of the various rivers of the Cameroons, 
in search of the best route to the interior, where he 
hoped to plant a new mission station. 

But a new turn was given to his work when, 
news having reached England that Stanley had 
crossed Africa and down the Upper Congo, it was 
decided to organize a mission for work on the great 
rivers. Grenfell, to his delight, was asked to join in 
the expedition sent out for the puri)ose. Thus he 
began the second stage in his missionary career. 

A preliminary expedition up the Congo led Gren- 
fell and his companion, Eev. T. J. Comber, to settle 
upon San Salvador as a mission station. Their in- 
tention was to make this the first in a chain of 
stations connecting the lower with the upper river, 
but it was soon found necessary to make a new 
start, and establish at convenient points through the 
cataract region new stations as depots for supplies 
and centers for Christian work. Encounters with 
hostile natives were numerous, and hardships weie 
of hourly occurrence ; but Comber and Grenfell 
were undaunted. 

A vessel being absolutely necessary for the suc- 
cessful carrying on of explorations, application was 
made to home friends, and funds were given for the 
purpose. Mr. Grenfell was requested to visit Eng- 
land in oi'der to superintend the vess(^rs construction. 

In 1883 the result of his labors, the steel vessel, 
[n:{] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



Peace^ was landed iu sectioDS, one hundred miles 
from the mouth of the Congo. Thence the pack- 
ages were to be carried by natives, more than 
two hundred miles, to Stanley Pool. '' The carriers, 
under the guidance of one of their head men, 
marched in caravans, sometimes stretching a mile in 
length, so that there was risk of the packages being 
lost or stolen. To lessen that risk, they had every 
package numbered, so that a duplicate could be 
sent from England at once.'^ The deadly climate 
threatened to interfere with the lebuilding of the 
vessel ; the two engineers sent out for the purpose 
died before they could begin work. (Several mis- 
sionaries, sent to reenforce the Congo expedition, 
also died.) But the vessel was needed at once. So, 
without waiting for fresh engineers to arrive, the 
sturdy Grenfell went to work on the parts. The 
Church of Scotland Missionary Record tells how the 
task was accomplished : 

^'The Peace was handed over to him in eight 
hundred sections. He was no engineer ; and to any 
one but an engineer it must have seemed at first that 
this heterogeneous pile of iron plates, steel bars, 
rods, bolts, nuts, and screws, dumped down on the 
banks of the Congo, was of little more use than 
scrap-iron. Yet, with no one to help him but some 
native boys, he put the boat together, engines and 
all, launched her into the stream, and found her as 
taut and trim and manageable as could be desired." 

Of the future history of this vessel, Mr. GrenfelTs 
biographer says: ^^On her deck he explored im- 
mense reaches of the waterways of the Dark Con- 

[114] 



THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 

tinent, filling in huge blanks of the vast map. She 
bore him through a thousand perils of nature and 
of man. For months^ which added u^ to years, she 
was the home of his wife and babes, who accom- 
panied him in his eventful voyaging. Her plates 
and rivets were dear to him as his own skin, and the 
throb of her engines was like the beating of his own 
heart. Her sister ships coming after were larger, 
swifter craft, but she was his first love, and his love 
never failed . . . and the little craft was faith- 
ful to her master. Worked by black boys, whose 
hands he made skillful, and whose hearts he had 
won with a great and holy love, she bore him, a dy- 
ing man, upon his last short voyage, from his lonely 
front station to the place where he found a grave. 
It is doubtful whether any ship afloat has a more 
fascinating history than that of the Baptist mission- 
ary steamer Peace ; and surely in the future, when 
Congo conditions have been bettered, and advances 
made, of which Grenfell nobly dreamed, in some 
state museum a worthy model of the Pmce will hold 
a place of honor." 

The records of the voyage of the Peace are a part 
of tlie history of the exploration of Africa. Un- 
daunted by dangers from attacking natives (at first 
it was necessary to protect the passengers from 
weapons by wire netting) and unwearied by the 
great labors of long journeys, Mr. Grenfell and his 
loyal assistants went up and down the Congo and 
explored ils tributaries. In recognition of his 
splendid work, he was awarded the gold medal of 
the Geographical Society. The London Times ^\\'u\ 

[115] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



of him : '' Few explorers in auy part of the world 
have made such extensive and valuable contribu- 
tions to geographical knowledge as the modest mis- 
sionary who, had he possessed the ambition of men 
who have not done a tithe of his work, would have 
been loaded with honors.'' 

It must not be thought, however, that Mr. Gren- 
fell was only an explorer. Exploration was only 
a means to an end. Every opportunity was used 
to preach the gospel. At first opportunities were 
few, for the language was unfamiliar, but later on 
more would be done. Even after the first voyage, 
Mr. Grenfell wrote: ^^ We have done a little more 
preliminary work which is none the less our 
Father's business. Oh, for the time when, settled 
among these people, there shall be servants of God, 
teachers of his word, to show these heathen the 
Christian life, and to try and draw them home to 
God." 

In England many criticized the work because it 
seemed so spectacular and so unlike the recognized 
activity of a missionary. In answer to these criti- 
cisms, one of Mr. GrenfelPs associates wrote : 

^^It has pained us to learn that our purpose in 
these investigations has, in some quarters, been mis- 
understood. It may be exciting, but it is certainly 
far from pleasant to be a target for poisoned arrows, 
or to run the frequent risk of being speared, and 
perhaps eaten by wild cannibals. The accounts 
may be thrilling, but whatever aspects such work 
may present to those who think the matter over he- 
«ide their comfortable firesides at home, certainly 

[116] 



THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 

those of us who have been obliged to do pioneeriDg 
work, almost ad nauseam^ would infinitely prefer 
quiet mission work on our stations to the privations 
and exposure which must inevitably attend all such 
journeys into the unknown interior. '^ 

And Mr. Grenfell's biographer says : ' ' Certainly" 
the reader will never understand Grenfell, unless he 
realizes that the competent engineer, exjDert traveler, 
and brilliant ex^Dlorer was first of all a missionary. 
The passion for souls possessed him. The mechan- 
ical and geographical work which he did so nobly 
was done in submission to the will of God, and at 
the cost of self-denial. He yearned for direct spir- 
itual service and, incomprehensible as it may seem 
to the man of science, it is simply true, that the ex- 
plorer's exultation which thrilled him when the 
morning sun flashed upon his gaze the broad 
splendors of a previously undiscovered lake, was a 
faint emotion compared with the joy which pos- 
sessed him when he saw the light of the knowledge 
of the glory of God transfiguring some dear black 
face, which his ministry had turned toward the face 
of Christ. ... A poor Congo boy passes away 
in his presence, radiant with the Christian victory 
over death. Grenfell rises from his bedside to bear 
witness that the sight of such another victory would 
be sufficient compensation for another fifteen years 
of toil in Africa.'^ 

The missionary's sorrow may be pictured when 
the Peace was seized by the Congo Free State gov- 
ernment for carrying guns and soldiers on a war 
expedition. Another steamer was ordered imme- 

[117] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



diately, so that when the Peace was returned the 
equixDment for effective exploration and missionary 
work was more ample for the needs. The seizure 
of the Peace was only the beginning of difficulties 
with the Congo Free State. The work was fre- 
quently interfered with, stations were ordered 
closed, and other disapxDointments of a similar na- 
ture led Mr. Grenfell to turn with loathing from 
the decorations given him by the state. His heart 
was saddened as he saw on every hand evidences of 
the atrocities committed on helpless natives. Once 
he recorded his visit to a village where the right 
hands of twenty natives had been cut off by soldiers. 

In spite of state interference, stations multiplied 
and natives became Christians. Churches and 
schools were built. Natives were trained in useful 
occupations. Translations were made of parts of 
the Bible and other helpful literature. 

So, after many years, came the days of light on 
the Congo, which Mr. Grenfell had seen by faith 
ever since his first voyage in the Peace, Because 
of his faith he had once disobeyed the Church Mis- 
sionary Society when it summoned him home by 
telegraph, on the ground that his health was failing 
and his colaborers were dying. His letter of re- 
fusal said very politely, but none the less plainly, 
^^sha'n't!" ^'My duty is to stay awhile longer," 
he insisted. 

He did stay. Of course there were brief trips to 
England for purposes of rest and recuperation, but 
usually for business, and he was in Africa in the 
midst of his work when he heard the summons to 

[118] 



THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 

lay down his burdens. While on one of his voyages 
he was attacked by fever. ^^ I lie down with fever,'' 
he wrote one night in his journal. 

For nine weeks the fever continued. From his 
bed he directed the work of building the new mis- 
sion station at Yalemba. No European companion 
was near, for he wrote that it was unwise for any 
one to come to him, and he insisted that he would 
be all right. But the fever grew worse. Finally, 
two of his faithful followers wrote to Yaksuria, 
pleading for aid. 

^'We are very sorry because our master is so 
sick. So now we beging you one of you let him 
come to help Mr. Grenfell, please, we think now is 
near to die, but we don't know how to do with 
him." 

But before anybody came, the dying man was 
taken by his native friends to Basoko. The voyage 
was made in the Peace, then almost worn out. On 
July 1, 1906, he died. 

The name of the missionary explorer is to be per- 
petuated on the map of Africa by the name ^^ Gren- 
fell Falls," given to a series of rapids forty-five 
miles long on the Mubangi. But this is the least 
of his many distinctions. His name is written in- 
delibly in the lives of thousands who have been 
reached through his unceasing labors for a better 
life ; and it is written large in the Lamb's book of 
life. 



[119] 



XIII 

DOWN AMONG GOD^S PEOPLE 

The Joyful Service of Herbert Boswell Bates 

When Herbert Eoswell Bates was born in a com- 
fortable home in Potsdam, New York, on April 20, 
1870, it was taken for granted that he would be a 
physician when he became a man» His father was 
a physician, as his father's father and grandfather 
had been. So it was a tradition in the family that 
the oldest son must be a physician. When he was 
old enough to talk of his plans he was quick to say, 
^' I must follow in their footsteps.'' 

But when he was eighteen years old his mother 
told him of her desire that he become a minister. 
Perhaps the conversation did not make so much 
impression on him at the moment. However, his 
mother died suddenly that night. And from the day 
of her death he was just as certain that he would 
order his life in accordance with her wishes as he 
had been before that he would follow out the tradi- 
tion of the family. 

He did not wait until the completion of his course 
of preparation to begin work for his Master. Im- 
mediately after graduating from high school, he 
began teaching in Elba, Nebraska. His biographer 
says of this early service : 

[120] 



DOWN AMONG GOD'S PEOPLE 



^^ Often after a day of hard work in Elba, his 
evening was spent in a neighboring town, leading a 
meeting which aimed at the suppression of intem- 
perance and vice. He called upon the youug people 
around him to help by furnishing music for his 
meetings. Frequently he assisted in services on 
the Sabbath when the pastor was not able to be 
present. ' ^ 

At Hamilton College he became known as a good 
companion. His classmates delighted to be with 
him in his dormitory room or to have him with 
them in their rooms. He was a delightful comrade 
who was always thinking of the other fellow more 
than of himself. 

His popularity was temporarily eclipsed by an 
event that afterwards served to make him more 
popular than ever. ^^To shield a fellow student 
from disgrace after that student had pleaded with 
him for help, he allowed himself to be accused of a 
theft, and remained silent. He was suspended from 
the college, and the strain of the experience brought 
on a serious illness. The facts of the case having 
been cleared up, he returned to college and became 
a stronger power for good than ever before." 

In Clinton, the college town, he found an oppor- 
tunity for service when he learned that the negro 
church was split into factions, so that it was im- 
possible to choose a minister. He agreed to act as 
their pastor. On Sunday evening he preached to 
them. During the week he ministered to them in 
their homes. His pulpit appeals were impassioned, 
and his pastoral visits were marked by teiulerness 

[121] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



and wisdom. The people loved him. ^'Mr. Bates 
is all the minister we want,'' was the decisive reply 
to the proposal that an ordained minister be called 
to conduct a funeral service. 

Probably this experience in college was a factor 
in leading him, at the end of his course in Auburn 
Seminary, to choose work among the poor and neg- 
lected of ]^ew York Cit^^ instead of in one of the 
more normal fields such as many of his classmates 
chose. As assistant pastor of the Church of the 
Sea and Land he ''found that for which he was 
seeking, a chance to help peoiDle who really needed 
help, and a chance to get at some of the big prob- 
lems of a city's life.'' 

From the first he found great joy in his work. 
In a letter to a friend he told of its varied fasci- 
nation : ''When I lie down at night I cannot say 
the day has been wasted, for each hour brings a 
task to do for the Master. Can you imagine me 
playing the part of an express cart down East 
Broadway, loaded with bags of apples, bundles of 
clothes, a box with two rabbits, and another with a 
live chicken and twenty fresh-air children running 
around me like so many colts *? Or do you want a 
picture of me trudging through the sand at Coney 
Island, with a baby on one shoulder and one under 
each arm, and fifteen disreputable-looking mothers 
carrying more babies, as if I were a new edition of 
Brigham Young ^ " 

The pastor of the church gave this further glimpse 
of him: "Mr. Bates shrank from no service, no 
matter how humble or humiliating, by which he felt 

[122] 



DOWN AMONG GOD'S PEOPLE 



he could help some one of those poor people who 
then lived on Cherry Street. He seemed to grow in 
character and in ability to reach the people from 
day to day, and I shall always count it a great 
privilege to have had him associated with me." 

After one year as assistant at the "West End 
Presbyterian Church, he became pastor of the 
Spring Street Presbyterian Church, located in the 
heart of New York's lower West Side. Soon after 
the beginning of this pastorate he wrote : 

*^ Oh, the peace of a life that is happy only when 
doing His will, when He will ! I believe I have 
found my place.'' 

His coming to Spring Street put an end to a 
heated discussion in New York Presbytery as to the 
wisdom of continuing the church. Many wanted to 
sell the property, in view of the change in the neigh- 
borhood. But the members who believed there was 
still work to be done gathered regularly in their 
homes for prayer that God would send them a min- 
ister. When the call was sent to Mr. Bates, he 
responded, ^^If God be with us we shall succeed. 
I accept." 

From the beginning it was evident that God was 
with him and with his people. The church grew 
until it had more than six hundred members. In- 
stitutional work was extended so wisely that the 
wants of the neighborhood were met in ways of 
which no one had dreamed before ; and because 
Christ was the heart of the institutional work this 
became a recognized model for such work in many 
other fields. 

[123] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



The young pastor was always busy. Now he was 
conductiug a tent meeting ; again he was sweeping the 
snow for a woman near the Settlement House who 
was not strong enough for the task ; then he might 
go to see an immigrant family who needed just the 
help he could give in their time of misfortune ; 
that night he might be rollicking with the Boy 
Scouts in the transformed manufactory which they 
used for a gymnasium ; next day he would perhaps 
respond to the call of a tenement dweller who was 
being exploited for the benefit of some rapacious 
landlord. And everywhere he went he carried with 
him the spirit of his Master. As an Italian girl 
said, ''The room is brighter when he is in it.'' 

This busy pastor found time to respond to the 
calls that came to him to speak to the students at 
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Penn- 
sylvania, Amherst, Williams, Michigan, Smith, 
Bryn Mawr, and other colleges. At preparatory 
schools also he was a most acceptable speaker. He 
knew how to win the students. They became his 
friends, in spite of himself, and he won many of 
them to be the friends of his Friend. 

He was never afraid to speak to them of the 
call of the Master. Once in a fraternity house 
at Yale a company of students fought shy of him 
just at first, because they thought he would speak 
of religion. But in a little while he had won their 
attention, and they were ready to listen respectfully 
to his fervent message that he had come to give. 
And he had his reward. In the words of his bi- 
ographer : ''A fine big freshman detached himself 

[124] 



DOWN AMONG GOD'S PEOPLE 



from the group, and comiDg over to him, gripped 
his hand and said, with intense earnestness, ' Mr. 
Bates, I want to stand for those things at Yale.' 
That freshman became the greatest athlete Yale has 
had in ten years, and he stood in the life of the 
college for the things he said he would stand for 
that evening in the fraternity house." 

At conferences of College Men, at Northfield and 
elsewhere, he was in demand not only as a speaker 
but as a personal worker, for it was absolutely cer- 
tain that the result of his stay would be a quickened 
interest in vital religion on the part of the men, and 
that almost certainly some of them would be led 
into a life work that counted for God and for their 
fellows. 

Always he showed that his '^ supreme interest was 
the deeply religious interest,'' Eobert E. Speer has 
said. ^^ Students felt that his touch on life was 
broad and sure, but they knew also that his own 
concern was for the things that are deeper and that 
abide. " 

Sometimes he was persuaded to take much-needed 
vacations. But he never took a vacation from Chris- 
tian work. Once, on shipboard, he was among a 
company of young men who made sport of religion, 
and ridiculed the name of -^ Eeverend Batts " which 
appeared on the ship's passage list. Later they 
learned that he was the man of whom they had made 
fun. By this time they liked him and were ready 
for his talk on any subject. Before the voyage was 
over one at least of the scoffers became a Christian. 

During his last years at Spring Street his friends 
[125] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



realized that Le was pushing himself far beyond his 
strength. Bat he would not listen to warnings. 
The work was before him, and he felt he had to do 
it. His biographer says that ^^when he returned 
from speaking he was often so exhausted that he 
could not stand. Always carrying the full weight 
of others^ sins and temptations, he gave his strength 
to the weak and his sympathy to the suffering, as a 
person gives his lifeblood to renew the life of 
another." 

One who worked with him in the Settlement 
House has told an incident that reveals the intense 
earnestness of the man, even in times of great weak- 
ness : ^' One evening, as he lay on his bed, he asked 
me to bring him his little book, which contained 
the names of all the members of his congregation. 
As he held it in his hand, I sat by his side, and he 
told me of his love for them all. He said, ^ I know 
what it means when I read those words, '^ He was a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,'' for I 
too have tried to carry their sorrows and bear their 
burdens.' He told me how he used to spend hours 
on his knees, praying for each one by name, bring- 
ing to God their trials and temptations." 

In June, 1913, the tired pastor sailed with Mrs. 
Bates on a tour of South America, with the double 
object of visiting the mission stations, and regaining 
his health. But a month later he went on a longer 
journey. For suddenly, in Cuzco, Peru, he was not, 
for God took him. 

Perhaps the noblest words spoken in his memory 
were those of his friend, Mrs. Meigs, of the Hill 

[126] 



II 



DOWN AMONG GOD'S PEOPLE 



School, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, to whose students 
he had so often spoken : 

^' To have wrought as he wrought, to have loved 
as he loved, to be loved as he is loved ; to have 
opened the eyes of those blind to God's truth ; to 
have unstopped the ears of those who were deaf to 
God's voice ; to have awakened the spirits of those 
dead in trespasses and sin ; to have made crooked 
things straight and dark places light, is truly to 
have lived and divinely to have achieved.'' 



[127] 



xiy 

THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH 

Hoio William Carpenter Bompas Pressed On 

^^ Shall no one come forward to take up the 
standard of the Lord as it falls from his hands, and 
to occupy the ground '^ '' 

The ringing appeal was made on May 1, 1865, at 
the anniversary meeting of the Church Missionary 
Society, in London, England, by Bishop Anderson 
of Eupert's Land. He had told of a lonely mission 
station on the Yukon Eiver where Eev. Eobert Mc- 
Donald had been working courageously until health 
threatened to give way because of the rigors of his 
life. 

In the congregation was a young curate of the 
Church of England, William Bompas, the son of Ser- 
geant Charles Bompas, who is said to have been the 
original of '' Sergeant Buzfuz '' in Dickens' ^' Pick- 
wick Papers." He was then thirty-one years old, 
and had been doing work in various parishes for six 
years. He had not had the advantages of a uni- 
versity education, but had decided to enter the uni- 
versity after spending six years in the offices of 
London solicitors. A severe nervous breakdown 
gave him leisure for study which turned his thoughts 

[128] 



THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH 



to the work to which he gave the remainder of his 
life. 

The years of his apprenticeship were spent in 
three difficult parishes, where simple-hearted kind- 
ness and wise methods of dealing with the people 
enabled him to accomplish results that surprised 
those who knew conditions in his fields. 

However, he was not satisfied to remain at home. 
He longed to go to the millions of China or India. 
But the church authorities felt he was too old to 
learn an Eastern language. Disappointment made 
him all the more eager, and he did not give up hope. 
His chance came when the appeal was made for one 
ready to undergo the trying conditions of life in the 
rozen North. 

There was no looking back after the decision was 
made. He was told that it was eight thousand 
miles to his field, and that he could not hope to 
reach it that year ; no one had even made the jour- 
ney in winter. But he wished to reach Fort Simp- 
son by Christmas Day, and he made known his 
determination to start in three weeks. 

Eealizing that he could take with him only a 
small bag, he selected a few of the most necessary 
things, resolutely putting aside everything ''that 
might lead back his thoughts to home.'' 

The journey was comparatively easy until he 
reached the Eed Eiver of the North. There he took 
passage in one of its fleet of four boats of the Hud- 
son Bay Company which were about to start on 
their annual journey to the North. For sixty-three 
days he continued witli tlie fur company's men, 

[ 129 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



^'across great inland lakes^ over hard portages 
where the freight had to be carried, past the com- 
pany's posts, mission stations, and Indian encamp- 
ments, where services were held when possible. '^ 

At Portage La Loche it was found that the last 
boats of the season had gone. Many a traveler 
would have remained there until spring. But Mr. 
Bompas, eager to begin his work, engaged a canoe 
and two half-breeds. ^^The journey was a hard 
one," H. A. Cody says in his story of the mission- 
ary's life. ^^ In some places they had to battle with 
drifting ice, and the water froze to their canoe and 
paddles. Still they pressed on, all day long con- 
tending with running ice, the bleak, cold wind 
whistling around them, and the water freezing upon 
their clothes. At night there was a lonely shore, 
the camp fire, the scanty meal, and the cold ground 
covered with brush for a bed. '' 

At Fort Athabasca the ofBcer in charge of the 
trading post begged him to stay with him through 
the winter. He declared that it would be impossi- 
ble to conquer the icy streams yet to be encountered. 
But Mr. Bompas said he must press on ; a sick man 
was waiting for him, and he could not delay. An- 
other boat was secured, manned by three sturdy 
Indians, and the hardest stage of the journey was 
begun. 

Three days later winter began in earnest. A way 
had to be cut through floating ice that jammed the 
stream. ^^The ice chips flew. The spray dashed 
and drenched them, and then incased their bodies 
with an icy armor.'' At length the river was com- 

[130] 



THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH 



pletely frozen, and it was necessary to take to the 
forest. After two days of struggle with the under- 
growth they reached the shore of Great Slave Lake. 
At Port Eesolutiouj after a delay of a month, the 
missionary procured snowshoes, and a dog team and 
sledge with two men to conduct him on his way. 
In five days he reached Big Island, where he joined 
the men who were to carry the winter mail to Fort 
Simpson, his destination. He told them of his de- 
termination to reach the fort by Christmas Day, so 
they put forth every effort to accomplish the task. 
It was a difficult feat, but they succeeded. On the 
morning of December 25 they reached the fort, to 
the astonishment of the residents there, who had 
never known a visitor from civilization to reach 
there at such a time. The cheering news awaited 
the traveler that the missionary to whose aid he had 
come was once more well and strong. This made 
necessary a change of plan. He was not to go on 
the Yukon, but was to travel here and there among 
the Eskimos and Indians of the North. 

In order to prepare himself for this difficult duty, 
he mingled with the Indians at Fort Simpson and 
at Fort Norman on the Mackenzie Eiver, studying 
the Slave language. By Easter he was able to 
talk intelligently to the natives. The Hudson Bay 
Company built for him a school at Fort Norman, 
and there he did effective work among the chil- 
dren. But he spent much of his time in visiting 
the tents of the people, living with them, talking 
with them, showing himself their friend. 

He was glad when the opportunity came to go 
[ 131 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



still farther north through a country so forbidding 
that he said of it : '^ For any other object than that 
of walking humbly with our God this country offers 
but a poor position.'' Every day brought new 
hardships, yet he was unconscious of these because 
of his hunger to tell of Christ to those who did not 
know him. 

A vivid picture of some details of these journeys 
were written by the traveler himself : 

' ' As sundown approaches, a spot is selected in 
the woods where some dead trees are seen standing. 
The snow is scraped away, by using a snowshoe for 
a shovel, from a circular space sufficient to seat the 
party. This space is next thickly strewn with pine 
branches lopped down for the purpose, and which 
are locally termed brush. The axes are then in 
requisition to fell a sufficient amount of dead trees 
for the consumption of firewood for the night. 

^' With a few splinters of dogwood and shavings 
cut from trees, or with a piece of birch bark which 
burns like a torch, a fire is started and piled to a 
sufficient height with logs. Water is procured by 
melting some of the snow, and kettles are brought 
for preparing the evening meal. Dogs are fed with 
fish, and when supper is consumed, shoes and socks 
are dried for the next day's travel, and the travelers 
seek repose wrapped in their blankets on the pine 
brush before the fire embers, till shortly after mid- 
night, when preparations are begun for another 
day's march.'' 

He made light of the hardship of sleeping in the 
snow when lost or overtaken by a storm, declaring 

[132] 



THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH 



that in tbe far North the traveler needs only to bury 
himself in the snow to be perfectly safe. This is 
due to the intense cold. Farther south it is dan- 
gerous to pass the night in the snow because it will 
melt about the sleeper, and he will soon be frozen 
to death. 

It was not till July, 1869, that he was able to 
reach Fort Yukon, the field of Mr. McDonald, the 
missionary whom he had thought to relieve when 
he offered himself for Canadian service. A few 
weeks later he was present when the stars and 
stripes were raised over the fort, in token of the 
transfer of the country from Eussia to the United 
States. Then he pushed on to the Eskimos near Fort 
McPherson, and spent months among them, trying 
to learn their difficult language, in the hope that he 
might do something to better the condition of these 
uncouth children of the cold. He was their com- 
panion on fishing and hunting trips, and when they 
returned to their homes, he entered with them. 
That it was not easy to do this may be gathered 
from his description of their quarters, though in 
writing this he had no thought of complaint : 

^^ The Eskimos sleep in their tents between their 
deerskins, all together in a row extending the whole 
breadth of the tent, and if there are more than 
enough for one row, they commence a second at the 
foot of the bed, with the head turned the other way. 
For myself, I always took care to commence the 
second row, keeping to the extremity of the tent, 
and thus generally rested without inconvenience 
except, perhaps, a foot thrust occasionally into my 

[133] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



side. At the same time it must be confessed that 
the Eskimos are rather noisy, often talking and 
singing a great part of the night, especially the 
boys, and if any extra visitors arrive, so that the 
tent is overfull, it is not exactly agreeable.'' 

To a friend to whom he wished to give a more 
picturesque description of the difficulties encoun- 
tered, he said : 

^^ Go to the nearest well-to-do farmer, and spend 
a night in his pigsty (with the pigs, of course), and 
this is exactly like life with the Eskimos. As this 
comprises the whole thing in a nutshell, I think I 
need give you no further description. The diffi- 
culty you would have in crawling or wriggling into 
the sty through a hole only large enough for a pig 
was exactly my case with the Eskimo houses. 

^^ Harness yourself to a wheelbarrow or a garden 
roller, and then, having blindfolded yourself, you 
will be able to fancj^ me arriving, snow blind and 
hauling my sledge, at the Eskimo camp, which is a 
white beehive about six feet across, with the way a 
little larger than that for the bees." 

Information similarly suggestive was given as to 
the diet of the Eskimos: '^Pat raw bacon tastes 
much like whale blubber, and lamp oil, sweetened 
somewhat, might pass for real fat. Eats you will 
doubtless find equally good to eat at home as here ; 
but you must get some raw fish, a little rotten, to 
enjoy an Eskimo dinner." 

After making a journey over the ice with an 
Eskimo family, Mr. Bompas wrote a few sentences 
which conveyed a better idea of his experience than 

[134] 



THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH 



a dozen paragraphs of mere prosaic description 
would have given : 

^^Get a dozen railway trucks, tackled together, 
and load them with large and small towboats, scaf- 
fold poles, three or four dead oxen, the contents of 
a fishmoDger's stall and of a small rag shop, and 
then harness all your family and draw the trucks on 
the rails, with a few dogs to help, and thus you 
have a very close resemblance to an Eskimo family 
traveling in printer with their effects over the frozen 
ice/' 

Always the sense of humor that enabled him to 
write such letters was his salvation in the midst of 
trying surroundings. After four years of untiriug 
efforts for the Indians and the Eskimos in a region 
hundreds of thousands of square miles in extent, he 
was called home to England. There he was created 
bishop of the diocese of Athabasca. His new terri- 
tory was to be much smaller than the field over 
which he had roamed for eight years, but it was 
still more than one million square miles in extent. 

As one result of his eight years' labor he had 
brought home with him portions of Scripture, 
prayers and hymns in seven different dialects, in- 
cluding the entire Gospel of Mark. When he re- 
turned to the wilds he had the joy of taking with 
him printed copies of these translations. 

For his second period of service among the In- 
dians he was not alone ; while in England he was 
married. Through all the remaining years of his 
life Mrs. Bompas was by his side, encouraging him 
and sharing his work. Other helpers came to his 

[135] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



assistance as the immense field developed in his 
hands. Missions were planted at a number of 
widely scattered points. Faithfully he visited 
those whom he placed in charge of these. He 
never thought of sparing himself, and he never 
wished for anything better than the privilege of 
remaining on the field. Fellow workers sometimes 
felt that they must return for a period to civiliza- 
tion, but he was unwilling to leave his Indians. 
Once, when duty called him to the Pacific coast, he 
might easily have gone on to England, but he said 
that he preferred to return north without even vis- 
iting the haunts of civilization, as such a visit would 
render the mind disinclined for life in the wilds. 
Later, when urged to go home on furlough, he said 
he did not desire the trip. In lieu of a reason, he 
asked the question, '' If over fifteen years ago when 
I was at home I felt like SamuePs ghost, how should 
I feel now *? '' 

In 1884 it was thought best by the church to di- 
vide his diocese. He was given his choice of the 
southern part or the portion which stretched on up 
to the shores of the Arctic. Some thought he might 
choose the easier field, but those who knew him 
best were not surprised that his preference was ex- 
pressed for the new Mackenzie River diocese. He 
wanted to go as far as possible from the restraints 
of civilization, for he felt that there he could ac- 
complish more for the Indians, while at the same 
time he would be able to complete the translations 
on which he was still engaged. In like manner, 
when his diocese was again divided, he chose the 

[136] 



THE APOSTLE OF THE NORTH 



more difficult section, where he could minister to 
the Indians and the miners on the Yukon and their 
neighboring territory. 

It was his prayer that he might be able to end 
his days on the field. He had his desire. On June 
9, 1906, he had visited all the Indian schools at 
Carcross, and had called on several sick men at the 
Indian camp. In the evening he was preparing his 
venison for the next day when God called him home. 



[137] 



XV 

LEARNING TO MINISTER TO ALIENS 

The Long Apprenticeship of Edward A, Steiner 

Just before the begiDiiing of the American Civil 
War a boy was born in a Jewish home in a Hun- 
garian village who was to do wonderful things not 
only for his own countrymen but for the down- 
trodden people of other European lands. 

Even as a small boy he dreamed of helping the 
oppressed Slovaks who lived among his own people. 
But he did not dream of the way his longing to help 
them was to be carried out. 

One day a strolling fortune teller excited him by 
the prophecy that he would go to America. From 
that day he was eager to listen to tales of the won- 
derful land across the sea, as these were told by 
returning immigrants and by visitors. Several 
times he tried to run away from the home when 
his dreams of going to America were laughed at, 
but always he was brought back. 

Finally, when he was a young man, the journey 
to America became a necessity, in the opinion of 
the mother who had striven hard to keep him by 
her side. She feared that his impulsive boyish acts 
in behalf of his Slovak friends had attracted the at- 
tention of the authorities, and that they would try 
to punish him. In reality he had done nothing in 

[ 138 ] 



LEARNING TO MINISTER TO ALIENS 

later youtK as serious as his boyish act when at- 
tending the synagogue school, of gathering his 
companions at recess and trying '^to incite them 
to a conspiracy against the cruel government, which 
exacted heavy taxes from the peasants. ' ' Yet friends 
who thought his impulsive words and acts might 
lead him into trouble urged his departure from home. 

The journey was long and trying, but at last he 
landed in New York. Then his real hardships 
began. 

One of his first acts was to buy five cents' worth 
of bananas, which he tried to eat with the skins on ! 
'' I stood upon the threshold of the United States," 
he says in the story of his life, " the acrid taste of 
banana- peeling upon my lips and around me a 
surging mass of malevolent looking gentry, each 
one anxious to get hold of me and carry me bodily, 
if need be, to the lodging house which he repre- 
sented.'' 

After eating his first meal at a cheap restaurant 
he went to hunt a job on Broadway. He thought 
he would try to persuade some one to take ad- 
vantage of his knowledge of Slavic languages. 
But the sights and sounds on Broadway were so 
strange that he did nothing but look and listen, 
and when he returned to his lodging house he had 
increased neither his earnings nor his x^rospects. 
In fact, when he had paid for his supj)er and a 
night's lodging, he was penniless. 

All day he tramped in search of some one who 
wanted to hire a University man. Being nnabl*' 
to satisfy his hunger, he di-ank great quantities of 

[ K59 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



ice water in the vain hope that thus the demands 
of his stomach might be silenced. In the evening, 
he remembered that his mother had given him the 
address of a distant relative in the city. Wearily 
he walked the eighty blocks to their home, and 
found a hearty welcome awaiting him. 

In the morning he borrowed twenty-five cents 
and set out to make a round of the leading hotels, 
in quest of a position where his knowledge of lan- 
guages would be of use to him. After being turned 
down twenty times he walked back to Eightieth 
Street, grievously disappointed. 

Sunday morning brought welcome change. He 
found his way to a church where he could under- 
stand nothing of the service. Yet strength came to 
him, for, in spite of the wavering of years between 
faith and unbelief, he listened to the preacher, and 
looked into the future. Of his thoughts as he 
looked he has said : ^' I felt that same premonition 
which had come to me when, as a child, I heard 
the Latin chant and saw the white robed priest — 
' some day you will be like them and do this self- 
same thing.' " 

On Monday morning he found his way to a sweat- 
shop where he was put to work pressing garments. 
At the end of a week of the hardest kind of work 
he received three dollars and fifty cents. And he 
was happy. ^^I really found joy in my calloused 
hands," he says in his autobiography. ^' Every 
blister meant more to me than certain slight sword 
cuts in my university days. The ache in my back, 
the weight on my shoulder, the hardening muscle 

[140] 



LEARNING TO MINISTER TO ALIENS 

of my arms exalted me before myself and I really 
thought life worth living, although it was lived in 
a sweatshop.'' 

A misunderstanding in the shop led to his dis- 
charge, and his discharge led to his exclusion from 
the home of his relative. Once more, then, he be- 
came a searcher for work by day. At night he 
slept on a bench in City Hall Square. 

Then followed other positions, long evening hours 
spent in night school, further seasons of weary look- 
ing for employment, a season as laborer on a New 
Jersey farm, where he discovered Emerson's Essay 
on '' Compensation," and reveled in such teachings 
as these : 

'^Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be 
repaid. The longer the payment is withholden the 
better for you ; for compound interest on compound 
interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer." 

'^Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. 
I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I 
learn the wisdom of St. Bernard : ' Nothing can 
work me damage except myself; the harm that I 
sustain I carry about with me ; and never am a real 
sufferer but by my own fault. ' " 

The assurance of the Sage of Concord that the 
trials a man faces ''may mark an epoch of fancy 
or of youth which was waiting to be closed," or 
may '^ compel the formation of new acquaintances 
and the reception of new influences that prove of 
the first importance to the next years," was a 
source of strength to him during the years of trial 
still before him. 

[141] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



Another message that came to him at this time 
of peculiar stress was by J. G. Holland : 

Oh ! feed and form me. Fill and furnish me, 
And if thou hast for me some humble task, 
Some service for thyself or for thy own, 
Reveal it to thy sad, repentant child. 

Through all the hard experiences of cleaning 
stables, cooking meals, scrubbing floors, working in 
Pennsylvania tobacco fields, laboring in the steel 
mills and the coal mines, and languishing in prison 
where he was sent for six months for having in his 
possession a worthless revolver, he was sustained 
by his desire for work for which he was fitted, and 
his belief that in time he would find it. 

From the coal regions of Pennsylvania to Chicago 
the immigrant was a companion of tramps. Once 
he stopped to work for a farmer who, on the day of 
his departure, followed him two miles on the road. 
^' He spoke to my soul, to my better self, as few men 
have ever spoken,'' Mr. Steiner says, ^^and when he 
left me I felt as if a holy presence had departed. 
. . . I frequently pass that farm on my trips 
East. . . . I call the place Bmmaus, for ^ here 
I walked with the Lord and knew it not.' '^ 

In Chicago work was not to be had, so he went to 
the Minnesota harvest fields. Hard days there were 
succeeded by weeks on the tramp, days in a coal 
mine, where he '^ never descended without fear, and 
never saw daylight without joy," and a season in a 
factory. 

Here he decided to act on the suggestion of ac- 
quaintances that he go East to a Jewish school, and 

[142] 



LEARNING TO MINISTER TO ALIENS 

begin traiDiog for the rabbinate. The expenses of 
the trip were to be met by his labor as caretaker on 
a cattle train. 

The journey, and his plan, were suddenly inter- 
rupted when he was thrown, by an Irishman who 
had first robbed him, from the top of a car to the 
ground. ''The train moved on, leaving me nearly 
a hundred miles from the college, and a great many 
thousand miles from becoming a rabbi,'' Mr. Steiner 
says, when recording the incident. 

That fall gave him a twisted leg, but he does not 
harbor resentment; he looks on the fall as ''the 
instrument of the Divine Providence." 

The crippled man limped into a town not far 
away, where he was taken into the home of a Jew- 
ess, who nursed him. When he was stronger, he 
became clerk in a store. There he had leisure for 
study. Books were collected for a small library, a 
microscope was bought, and finally a Nature Science 
Club was organized in his room. 

Soon he was the companion of people in whom he 
saw " an honest culture, strong character and a spirit 
of service which proved more convincing than the 
many and ingenious arguments with which they met 
his assaults upon their faith. 

Here he found his first opportunity to do some- 
thing for the immigrants. The town was a railroad 
junction, where ignorant foreigners changed cars. 
One day be was called in as interpreter for a Euthe- 
nian who had been defrauded by a farmer. For this 
man he secured justice, and at the same time started 
ill his life work. 

[ 143 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



This experience must have had its effect in his 
feeling after God. One day there came to him 
peace. '^It came like the quiet which steals into 
the midst of a storm at sea when the ship lifts and 
groans, then rights herself, finds her course, and 
moves again into the face of the abating tempest. '^ 

At length he decided to renew his journey to 
school, but this time he was not bound for a school 
of the rabbis 5 he went instead to a theological 
seminary, with a buoyant faith, a fresh enthusiasm, 
and a consuming passion to tell other men the way 
to the new hope and the new life. 

The days at Oberlin were filled fall. Thus he 
has told of them : ^^ Not only did I study theology, 
I taught in the modern language department of the 
college, preached every Sunday and did some 
manual labor. Such a mixture of occupations not 
only kept me from becoming one-sided or growing 
into a pious prig, but helped pay my expenses.'' 

Commencement day came, and a call from a dif- 
ficult field. There, and in several other fields, the 
man who had learned by fruitful experience the 
needs of the human heart, ministered with joy to 
his people, giving special attention to the sub- 
merged masses, especially the immigrants. 

Then came the day in 1903 when he was invited 
to the Chair of Applied Christianity in Grinnell 
College, Iowa, which he accepted because he felt 
that there he would have time to train others in the 
things he had learned while ministering to others. 

While his work at Grinnell has been epoch mak- 
ing, his greatest achievements have been away from 

[ 144 ] 



LEARNING TO MINISTER TO ALIENS 

the college, when he has gone to the lands from 
which come the immigrants, or has followed them 
to their destination in this country, always endeavor- 
ing to stand '^ between the immigrant and those who 
call him ^ the scum of the earth,' '' to make his way 
easier for him, and to teach his own message, 'Hhe 
inner kinship of the human," which he learned as 
he mused on the words of the Psalmist : 

He looketh down from heaven, 
He beholdeth the children of men, 
He fashioneth their hearts alike. 



[145] 



XYI 

A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

William Waddell^ Artisan Missionary 

In 1868 a ten-year-old Scotch boy whose home 
was on the banks of the Clyde went to a neighbor- 
ing farm to see the first reaper ever brought to the 
neighborhood. The farmer who had purchased the 
machine was downcast, for he could not make it 
work. He thought he had been swindled. The 
boy, whose name was William Thomson Waddell, 
looked over the machine carefully, and said diffi- 
dently, '^I think if yoa will take out that pin it 
will go all right.'' The farmer followed the sugges- 
tion, and was delighted to find that the reaper 
worked perfectly. 

That incident was a prophecy of the boy's life 
work. He became a genius in handliug tools of all 
kinds. And he made the best use of his unusual 
mechanical gift ; he devoted it to God's service. 

Five years later he became a Christian, and the 
ambition took possession of him to become a mis- 
sionary to Africa. But he had little education and 
it did not seem possible to send him to school. So 
his parents thought his dream ought to be given up. 
However, he kept Africa in miud through all the 
days of his apprenticeship as a ship joiner at Clyde- 

[146] 



A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

bank. Among his companions he was proud to be 
known as a Christian. ''It is a grand thing to be 
a Christian/^ he said. Sometimes he was ridiculed 
for his belief in God and his allegiance to him, but 
ridicule made no difference. In time his fellow 
workmen learned that it was wise to let him alone ; 
his life was a fact against which none of their argu- 
ments would stand. 

After his apprenticeship days, he worked for 
various employers, who valued him highly because 
they could trust him with most particular tasks. 
But he was not satisfied. He wanted to use his 
hands in God's service on the mission field. 

He was employed in Dublin when he saw an ad- 
vertisement asking for men to go to the Orange Free 
State to assist in the building of a new church. He 
applied and was accepted, at good wages. When 
he told his parents of his new plan, his mother 
urged him not to go if he was thinking only of the 
money he would make. He assured her that he was 
not going for the sake of money. She knew his 
longing to do missionary work, and must have 
guessed that he was eager to be nearer the scene of 
what he hoped would be his ultimate field of labor. 

At Bethlehem, South Africa, the young Scotch- 
man labored faithfully at his trade during the week. 
On Sunday he taught in Sunday school, and did 
what he could for the natives who lived near and 
the Kaffirs who were continually passing, on their 
way to and from the diamond fields. 

Once a week he called at the homo of his pnstor. 
Less than a year after his arrival in Bethlehem, Mr. 

[147] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



Waddell was makiug one of these visits when he 
was told of a missionary who was looking for a 
young man of his trade, to go with him as an artisan 
missionary. Frangois Coillard, the missionary, was 
French, but he had married a Scotch wife. To- 
gether they had spent twenty years among the 
Basutos. When the Basutos wished to undertake 
missionary work of their own, the devoted mission- 
aries went to Mashonaland. Disaster overtook them 
there ; they were the prisoners of the Matabele king 
for some time. Learning of a tribe on the Zambesi 
who spoke the same language as the Basutos, Coil- 
lard made a tour of exploration and determined to 
open a mission among them. As the Basutos were 
unable alone to finance this large work, he decided 
himself to become responsible for a large part of the 
needed funds. He told Mr. Waddell' s pastor of his 
need for volunteer workers. 

^' Would you like that kind of work ? '' the pastor 
asked Mr. Waddell. 

"' I would be only too glad if I were of any use, 
but I am afraid I shall not suit, as I can work only 
with my hands,'' was the modest answer. 

The pastor said: ^^You would be invaluable. 
But, remember, you cannot make money as you are 
now doing." 

^^ That's nothing to me if I can be of any use," 
was the Scotchman's fine answer. 

The wise Coillard would not permit anyone to 
volunteer for service with him until he understood 
thoroughly what was before him. Waddell wrote 
in his journal : 

[148] 



A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

'' He says he is glad to see I have a desire to do 
mission work, but thiuks I do not quite understand 
what I am proposing. He says it is a most un- 
healthy and deadly place where he is going, that his 
mission is jjoor, and he does not advise me to go un- 
less I see it to be a call from God." 

His companions told him he was making a mis- 
take ; they called his purpose to go with Coillard 
^^an act of suicide." But his parents encouraged 
him. When he wrote to them of his plans they told 
him that they were proud of him. 

During the long journey with the missionary 
party to the far-away station Waddell was severely 
tested. But he stood the tests well. Coillard 
watched him with satisfaction. In his book, ^^On 
the Threshold of Central Africa,'' he wrote of his 
Scotch recruit : 

^'Everyone has his share of damages, but no one 
has been so badly used as our friend Waddell. A 
portmanteau, a trunk, and tool box comprised all 
his belongings. The portmanteau and the trunk 
disappeared one after the other. ^ At least my 
chest of tools has escaped,' said our Scotchman, 
with satisfaction. He was proud of this mahogany 
chest, with its ingenious compartments, the first 
work of his apprenticeship. It received many 
blows and fractures, but our carpenter always found 
some way of repairing them. One day a new Mhu ! 
Mhu ! from Levi made us run breathless to the 
wagon. The precious chest was ho longer ; it lay 
splintered on the ground. This time the damage 
was irremediable. Poor Waddell used his liateliet 

r 149 1 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



with all his might to disentangle the rest of his tools 
from the trunk of a great tree. As for ourselves we 
could only look on, sorrowful and silent. WaddelPs 
face was flushed, the tears starting to his eyes, yet 
he tried to smile in spite of it all. ' Never mind, ^ 
he said, Hhe chest is broken, but the tools are 
saved ; give me some boards and time enough, and 
you'll see if I don't make something better.' 
There's grit in a man like that. It is easy enough to 
give him time, but wliere are the boards to come 
from % They will have to be made first, and no one 
knows that better than himself." 

The first planks were made with a handsaw. This 
was a difficult matter, for the timber used was a foot 
thick. He longed for a circular saw, but went ahead 
as best he could with what he had. 

A glimpse of the early days at the mission is 
given in the attractive story of Waddell's life by 
John MacConnachie from which these facts are 
taken : 

^^^I have no mosquito curtain,' he writes, ^ but 
sleep with gloves on, and cover my face as much as 
I can in the stifling heat, but awake in the morning 
to find my pillow all spotted with blood.' One day 
a gray-colored snake, about six feet long, spat over 
his shoulder. Another day he fell ten feet from the 
roof of the house which he was building. Once, 
when he had followed some natives to their shelter 
to demand the return of a stolen chisel, he heard one 
inciting the others to choke that moruti nyana (little 
teacher). He suffered much from fever, and often 
could hardly drag himself to work. ^Mr. Coillard 

[150] 



A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

has been thiuking he will have to bury me/ he 
writes. One day he had to struggle from his bed in 
the height of fever to make a cofQn for the little girl 
of Aaron, one of the Basuto evangelists. With the 
thermometer rising to 112 degrees in the shade, work 
at all times was difficult, and with a fever-stricken 
body it was martyrdom. And the night often 
brought little resf 

The artisan was untiring in his efforts to provide 
quarters for the other members of the party. He 
built substantial houses in a most painstaking man- 
ner, rejoicing that he could do something to make 
the lives of the teachers pleasanter, even if he could 
not teach himself. Perhaps one of his pleasantest 
tasks was when he built a house for one of the men 
who was about to marry a young woman in the 
party. But he was content with poor quarters for 
himself. He wrote in his journal of his abiding 
place : 

^ ' In my square hut of ten feet by ten I have put 
up a bench. My bed is on the one side and my 
bench is on the other. It is not very bedroomlike, 
with the floor all covered with shavings, but I get 
it cleared for the Day of Eest. My bench makes a 
good writing table, which is a great luxury to me, 
after having written all my letters on my knees 
since leaving Leribe. So, with a box for a seat, and 
a bench for a desk, I am as comfortably situated as 
the clerk of state.'' 

Several times the mission station was advanced 
further into the wilderness, but everywheic tlie 
artisan missionary gave his best skill to the housing 

[ 151 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



of the missionaries, while lie contented himself with 

humble quarters. 

Everywhere it was found that Waddell's handi- 
work was a surer way to win the interest of the 
natives than the preaching of Coillard. They 
watched in amazement as he squared the timber 
for a house ; they had always used round timbers, 
and built round houses, in imitation of the sun and 
moon, and it had never occurred to them that there 
was any other way. They entered a house, saw 
trees and water reflected in a looking-glass fixed to 
the wall, and felt that Waddell was a wonderful 
man to contrive such a thing. The king delighted 
to visit the cari3enter shop, and always found some- 
thing to admire. King and people alike saw the 
window glass, touched it, examined it on all sides, 
and said, '^The missionaries are people of God 
truly.'' Waddell took advantage of opportunities 
thus presented to drive home Christian teaching, 
and it did not occur to him that he was thus a 
member of the station teaching force, as well as a 
humble worker with his hands. 

Little by little he succeeded in training natives 
to assist him, and many of them he won to Christ. 
His association with these men was always pleasant. 

'' Between him and the natives whom he hired,'' 
Mr. MacConuachie writes, ^^ there grew up a spe- 
cially close intimacy. They knew his kindness of 
heart, and when they had displeased hini would 
drop upon their knees and clap their hands in his 
face, until they made him laugh, when they would 
say that his babali (temper) was not bad. But they 

[152] 



A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

knew also how far they might go. Beside him in 
his workshop lay his Bible, and often he would 
take it up and read a pointed text. The young 
princes also got many a straight word on their 
visits to his workshop. He had a special liking 
for the book of Proverbs, which, he discovered, 
had many apt words for princes. '^ 

His treasured Bible, a gift from his mother, was 
taken from him in an unexpected manner. During 
a brief absence on a visit to the king at his capital, 
the white ants attacked his books and reduced them 
all to powder. He was dismayed when he saw the 
havoc wrought, but he accepted it as he did all 
other privations, and smilingly went on with his 
work. 

After his busy days he tried to study the lan- 
guage, in order that he might be able to take a 
larger part in the teaching activities of his co- 
laborers. 

'• But I cannot apply myself to mental work,'' he 
said ; ^ ^ besides, the candle is a consideration. How- 
ever, if my vocabulary of Sesuto is not sufficient for 
preaching, it is enough to gain affection, and to wit- 
ness to my Saviour. And I am no more at a loss to 
direct the workmen, for when difficulties occur, or * 
the men say such and such a tree is too difficult to 
tackle, a joke generally settles the matter and re- 
moves the difficulty.'' 

At last came a day of which he had been dream- 
ing ever since he entered the forests. Word came 
that a circular saw, sent by Glasgow friends, was on 
the way. At once he liurried to the forest to cut 

[153] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



the timber for the fittings of the shop in which the 
wonderful gift was to be installed. While there he 
wrote : 

" Now I am camped in the forest, ripi3ing timber 
into planks for the central part of the saw bench. 
Try to think of me in the bright moonlight, seated 
behind a fence of bushes, and from the end of a tree 
trunk, which serves as a table, eating what I call a 
well-earned meal, although it has cost me nothing 
but a cartridge.'' 

The completed saw bench attracted visitors from 
near and far. Natives stood in open-eyed wonder 
as they saw oxen splitting wood, as they called the 
process. 

Another wonderful event was not quite so pleas- 
ant. A bell was sent from France for the church. 
Waddell set about preparations for the belfry. He 
chose a tree for the purpose, put up a ladder against 
it, and set to work to trim the branches. 

'^But the tree, being somewhat hollow, was in- 
habited by red honey-making ants," he ruefully 
wrote, " and no sooner did my axe go tap than out 
came a regiment of them and bit me so savagely, 
from head to foot, that I had to retreat faster than I 
came up. A boy then mounted with burning grass 
to fire them out, but he had no better luck, for they 
took refuge in his woolly hair, and made him scream 
as he descended the ladder. Not liking the idea of 
being driven off by ants, I made a fire of saltpeter 
and sulphur and fired their nest, but without success, 
for although I thought they were done for, I had no 
sooner begun chopping than out they came in bat- 

[154] 



A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

talions and drove me down the ladder. So I was 
conquered and had to seek a belfry in another tree." 

After seven years in Africa the artisan was plan- 
ning for the trip home to which he was entitled. 
But just at that time it seemed necessary to remove 
the mission station to the king's village. At once 
he decided that he was needed, and postiDoned his 
trip indefinitely. 

The new site, given by the king for the mission, 
was a plague spot, overrun with noisome and nox- 
ious insects and reptiles. But the brave Waddell 
undertook the work and carried it to completion, in 
spite of the fever that fastened itself upon him. In 
his diary he said nothing of his sufferings, but 
others have told of them. 

'^ He suffered from such stinging pain in his feet 
that he could not sleep, and the natives would bring 
damp grasses for him to stand on while he worked. 
Every day he toiled through the midday heat with- 
out a rest. There was an entire absence of drink- 
able water at the station ; it was two hours for a 
good walker to fetch any, and when he w as parched 
with thirst, there was often nothing to drink but 
green, stagnant, muddy water, alive with toads and 
other creatures, in which men, women and children 
bathed promiscuously. All the time he was on the 
Zambesi he was never in bed at break fast- time, but 
often he was on his feet and at his w ork so shaken 
with fever that he hardly knew what he was doiug.'' 

At last his health was so broken that a furlough 
seemed imperative, and he went back to Scotland. 
When he returned he hoped lo be married to a mis- 

[155] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



sionary. A home had been built, and the furniture 
had been fashioned by his own hand. For months 
he dreamed of life in that home, and of more effi- 
cient work for the natives. He studied various 
arts, such as grafting of trees, that he might teach 
these to the natives. 

But he was not to return. A specialist told him 
that he was suffering from an incurable disease, 
contracted on the Zambesi, and that he could not 
hope to leave his native land. 

He lived for several years, always in pain, but 
always cheerful and helpful. He did whatever he 
could for the mission, visiting the boat yards on 
the Clyde, examining machinery, and constructing 
models and patterns for Coillard. 

It was in 1895 that Waddell reached Scotland. 
Several years later he became blind. His suffer- 
ings were agonizing, but he was always cheerful. 
In 1904 came word of the death of Coillard. In 1907 
WaddelFs mother died, and he felt bereaved indeed, 
for she had been his constant companion. But his 
sister, who had been his nurse for years, remained 
with him. 

^' She gave twelve years of her life to tending him. 
For seven years she was never out of her house a 
single night, and in the last years was seldom out 
by day. Her face paled and her hair whitened, but 
she carried through her task, for she felt it was 
given her of God to do. She showed an unselfish- 
ness and self-sacrifice worthy to be set beside his 
own.^' 

When the close of his life was near, he said : 

[156] 



A HUMBLE WORKER ON THE ZAMBESI 

^' There will be no more pain. My ! will that no' 
be grauud ! ^ ^ 

He died April 12, 1909, at the age of fifty-one. 
He had paid for ten years of African service by 
fourteen years of suffering. His work was done at 
thirty-six, but he is remembered to-day at the Zam- 
besi by those who were won for Christ by his words 
and his deeds. 

Coillard left this record of his opinion of the 
Scotch artisan : 

^^Par be it from me to sound his praises. The 
work of his hands does that, a colossal work (let me 
use the word, it is not too strong), an incessant labor 
of nearly ten years. We have had missionary help- 
ers of that stamp, but they are rare. It is because 
it needs a more than ordinary measure of grace 
cheerfully to occupy this humble place in the mis- 
sion field, and to glorifiy God in it. . . . With- 
out him I should never have been able to undertake 
the establishment of the new station. '' 

Another coworker said : 

'^ He was a model artisan. He toiled hard and 
taught the Zambesi boys to labor. But he was a 
missionary, first and foremost, and never missed an 
opportunity of testifying to the righteousness of 
God, and his love manifested in Jesus Christ.^' 



[157] 



XVII 

IN A COUNTRY PARISH 

The Intense Life of Charles Kingsley 

When, in 1833, Charles Kingsley entered an Eng- 
lish public school, he was only fourteen, yet already 
he looked forward with anxiety and even distress to 
faciug the world after the completion of his college 
course, which was to follow. For, in addition to 
being shy, he had a hesitation in his speech of which, 
in manhood, he spoke as ^^that fearful curse of 
stammering which has been my misery since my 
childhood." 

Yet he was determined to overcome his handicap, 
and he set himself to his task with the same per- 
sistence that made him remarkable among his 
fellows, who delighted to tell of the day when he 
climbed a tree and put his hand in a hawk's nest, 
in search of eggs. Most unexpectedly the hawk 
was at home. ^^To most boys, the surprise of the 
hawk's attack, ajDart from the pain inflicted by her 
claws, would have been fatal,'' his biographer says. 
^^ They would have loosed their hold of the tree, and 
tumbled down. But Charles did not flinch. He 
came down as steadily as if nothing had happened, 
though his wounded hand was streaming with blood." 

It was not till he was twenty, however, that he 
[158] 



IN A COUNTRY PARISH 



began to speak with freedom and some comfort. 
The ability for which he had longed came when he 
met the young woman whom years later he mar- 
ried. He was then an Oxford undergraduate. To 
her he was able to open his heart without fear. He 
told her of the religious doubts that had troubled 
him for a long time. She received his messages with 
such comx)lete sympathy and gave him so much of 
herself that he found satisfaction in promising her 
^Ho read his Bible once more, to pray, to open his 
heart to the Light, if the Light would but come." 
But long months were to pass before her prayer for 
him was answered. 

'^ All was dark for a time, and the conflict be- 
tween faith and unbelief, and between hopes and 
fears was so fierce and bitter, that when he returned 
to Cambridge, he became reckless, and nearly gave 
up all for lost. He read little, went in for excite- 
ment of every kind . . . anything to deaden 
the remembrance of the happy past, which just then 
promised no future. But through all, God kept him 
in those dark days for a work he little dreamed of. 
' More than once he had nearly resolved, if his earthly 
hopes were crushed, to leave Cambridge and go out 
to the Far West to live as a wild prairie hunter.'^ 

Many years later he said to a friend whose doubts 
he was trying to dissipate: ^^An atheist I never 
was ; but in my early life I wandered through many 
doubts and vain attempts to explain to myself the 
riddle of life and this world, till T found that no 
explanation was so complete as the one which one 
had learnt at one's mother's knee." 

[ 159 ] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



His mind was fixed on a legal career. He had 
begun to make arrangements for his law training 
when he decided to be a minister. Of this change 
in plans he wrote : 

^'My determination was not the sudden impulse 
of a moment, but the expansion into clear certainty 
of plans which have been most strangely rising up 
before me for many months. Day after day there 
has been an involuntary still small voice directing 
me to the Church, as the only rest for my troubled 
spirit in this world or the next. ... I am un- 
der a heavy debt to God . . . how can I better 
strive to pay it than by devoting myself to the 
religion which I have scorned, and becoming a 
preacher of purity and holiness — a determined and 
disiuterested upholder of the only true and perfect 
system, the Church of Christ. '^ 

He was so anxious to begin his work that he 
exhausted his vitality by hard study. In six 
months' time he completed work that would have 
taken many men three years. Earlier in his uni- 
versity career he had walked in one day the distance 
from Cambridge to London, fifty-two miles. Fre- 
quently he would take an afternoon stroll of twenty 
or twenty-five miles. But when the six months of 
hard study was at an end he was hardly able to do 
so much. 

He was twenty-three when he became curate at 
Eversly. A part of his duty was to take services 
for the rector of the church. On July 7, 1843, he 
preached for the first time in this his first field. ^^ I 
was not nervous,'" he says, ^^for I had prayed be- 

[160] 



IN A COUNTRY PARISH 



fore going into the desk that I might remember that 
I was not speaking on my own authority, but on 
God's, and the feeling that the responsibility (if I 
may so speak) was on God and not on me quieted 
the weak terror I have of offending people." 

From the first he was popular among the simple 
people who attended the church. His biographer 
says that one secret of his success was that ^^he 
could swing a flail with the threshers in the barn, 
turn his swathe with the mowers in the meadow, 
pitch hay with the hay-makers in the pasture. . . . 
He had always a word of sympathy for the hunts- 
man or the old poacher. With the farmer he could 
discuss the rotation of crops, and with the laborer 
the science of hedging and ditching. And in giv- 
ing sympathy he gave power." 

While he was giving so freely of sympathy to 
others he was himself in great need of sympathy. 
For he did not know that he would ever be able to 
marry his love. Her parents were opposed to the 
marriage, and he had no prospects. But he had 
learned how to trust God, so he was not cast down. 
'^I can understand people's losing by trusting too 
little to God, but I cannot understand any one's los- 
ing by trusting too much to him," he wrote at the 
time. 

For a time the lovers were not permitted to ex- 
change letters. Of this period of testing he once 
said : '^ God knows how valuable it was to me ; and 
that I rank that period of misery as the most price- 
less passage of my whole existence. ... It 
taught me to realize that providence was a reality, 

[161] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



and prayer the highest sacrament ; that to the 
Blessed Lord alone we must look for the fulfillment 
of our desires.'' 

In September, 1843, the parents of his future wife 
gave leave to the young people to resume their cor- 
respondence, for at that time they had assurance tha^ 
he was soon to have a church of his own. ^' When 
I was on the point of black despair,'' he wrote later 
to one who was placed in a position similar to that 
which he had gone through, ^^ within a few days 
of the expiration of the period which I had involun- 
tarily, and as it were by inspiration, fixed — from a 
quarter where I least expected, by means of those 
who had been most utterly opposed to me — came a 
ray of light — an immediate reunion and from that 
moment a river of blessings heaped one on the 
other, as if the merciful God were turned prodigal 
in his undeserved love. Therefore take heart, my 
friend. Only humble yourself utterly ; be still and 
say, 'My Father, thy will be done.' And why 
shouldn't it be with you as it has with me*? " 

On another occasion he wrote : ''What an awful 
weapon prayer is ! Mark 11 : 24 saved me from 
madness in my twelve months' sorrows, and it is so 
simxDle and so wide — wide as eternity, simple as 
light, true as God himself; and yet it is just 'the 
last text of Scripture which is talked of, or preached 
on, or used." 

At first it seemed that he was to go to Pimperne. 
In looking forward to the home there, he wrote to 
his loved one : '' We must have a regular rule of life, 
not so as to become a law, but a custom. . . , 

[162] 



IN A COUNTRY PARISH 



Family prayers before breakfast ; eight-thirty to 
ten, household matters ; between one and five, go out* 
in all weathers, to visit sick and poor, and to teach 
in the school ; in the evening we will draw, and 
feed the intellect and the fancy. . . . We must 
devote from nine to twelve on Monday mornings to 
counting up our weekly bills and accounts, and 
make a rule never to mention them, if possible, at 
any other time; and never to talk of household 
matters, unless urgent, but between nine and ten in 
the morning nor of parish business in the even- 
ing. . . . One thing we must keep up, if we 
intend to be anything like witnesses for God, in per- 
haps the most sensual generation since Alaric des- 
troyed Eome, — I mean the continual, open, vital 
reference of everything, even to the breaking of a 
plate, to God and God's providence, as the Easterns 
do. . . . About our Parish. No clergyman 
knows less about the working of a parish than I do ; 
but one thing I do know, that I have to preach 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and to be instant 
in that, in season and out of season. . . . And 
therefore I pray daily for the Spirit of love to guide 
us, and the Spirit of earnestness to keep us at work. 
For our work must be done by praying for our peo- 
ple, by preaching to them, in church and out of 
church . . . and by setting them an example 
in every look, word, and motion — in the paying of 
a bill, the hiring of a servant, the reproving of a 
child.'' 

Most unexpectedly he was asked to become rector 
at Eversly, where he had been curate during the 

[1G3] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



first year of bis miDistry. Thus, all at once, a 
life of comfort opened oat before him. With 
Fanny Grenfell, who became his wife in 1844, he 
moved into the rectory to which he had turned 
longing eyes during the days of his unhappiness. 
To a friend who wished to know how he had at- 
tained his dream, he wrote : ^' It was simply by not 
struggling, doing my work vigorously (or trying to 
do it) where God had put me, and freely believing 
that his promises had a real, not a mere metaphor- 
ical meaning.'' 

The rectory had not been repaired for more than 
a hundred years. ^'The house was damp and un- 
wholesome, surrounded with ponds, which over- 
flowed with every heavy rain and flooded not only 
the garden and stables, but all the rooms on the 
ground floor, keeping up master and servants some- 
times all night, bailing out the water in baskets for 
hours together.'' 

Of his work among his people his biographer 
says : ^' He made a point of talking to the men and 
boys at their field work, and was soon personally 
intimate with every soul in the parish, from the 
mothers at their wash-tubs to the babies in the 
cradle, for whom he always had a loving word or 
look. ... It was by daily house-to-house 
visiting in the week, still more than his church serv- 
ices, that he acquired his influence. If a man or 
woman was suffering, he would go to them five and 
six times a day — and night as well as day — for his 
own heart's sake as well as for their souls' sake. 
Such visiting was very rare in those days." 

[164] 



IN A COUNTRY PARISH 



Years after he gave himself to his people, fame 
came to him as a result of his books, ^^ Yeast,'' 
''Alton Locke,'' ''Hypatia," ''Westward Ho," 
and others. Honors were showered upon him by 
the Church and by his queen. He was made a 
chaplain at Buckingham Palace, he was appointed 
to a canonry at Chester Cathedral, and later was 
asked to fill a vacant stall at Westminster Abbey, 
where he preached for a brief season each year. In 
Eversly, in Chester, in London, aod at Buckingham 
his sermons attracted attention, and proved wonder- 
fully helpful. 

But always his heart was with his people at 
Eversly. The demands made on him for extra 
services did not lead him to neglect them ; he met 
the increased demands on him by added intensity. 
"He had to a wonderful degree the power of 
abstraction and consecration, which enabled him to 
arrange and elaborate a whole sermon, or a chapter 
of a book, while walking, ridiug, or even fly-fish- 
ing, without makiug a note, so as to be able on his 
return to write or dictate it in clear, terse lauguage 
as fast as pen could move," wrote John Martineau. 
" He could read a book and grasp its essential facts 
thoroughly in a time so short that it seemed impos- 
sible that the eye could have traversed its pages. " 

Perhaps the appointment that gave him most satis- 
faction was as Begins Professor of History at Cam- 
bridge. For he realized that he would have unusual 
opportunities to win the young men for Christ. He 
used his opportunities, too. One of those who 
listened to him when a student said later of his 

[1G5] 



REAPERS OF HIS HARVEST 



work : '' Often aud ofteu . . . young fellows' 
eyes would be full of manly noble tears. And again 
and again, as the audience dispersed, a hearer has 
said, ^ Kingsley is right — I'm wrong — my life is a 
cowardly life — I'll turn over a new leaf, so help me 
God,' and many a lad did, too. Kingsley preached 
without seeming to do so. History was his text. 
The men and women of History were the words that 
built up his text." 

Another wrote: ^^It was not only the crowded 
room and breathless attention that told the interest, 
but many of us now, at the interval of fifteen years 
of busy life in our positions as clergymen . . . 
can trace back, as I can their first impression of 
true, manly Christianity to his strong words." 

When he died, on January 23, 1873, an invita- 
tion was given to the family to bury the body in 
Westminster Abbey. But they followed what they 
knew would have been his preference, and he was 
laid to rest among his own people, in Eversly 
churchyard. 

There a simple stone marks his grave. But he 
has other memorials Id the hearts of men and women 
whom he reached for God, in the books which will 
preach righteousness as long as the world stands, 
and in the wonderful biography edited by his wife, 
which is ^^ Dedicated to the beloved memory of a 
righteous man — 

'' Who loved God aud truth above all things, 
A man of untarnished honor — 
Loyal and chivalrous— gentle and strong, 
Modest and humble — tender and true — 
[166] 



IN A COUNTRY PARISH 



Pitiful to the weak — yearning after the erring — 

Stern to all forms of wrong and oppression, 

Yet most stern toward himself — 

Who, being angry, yet sinned not. 

Whose highest virtues were known only 

To his wife, his children, his servants, and the poor. 

Who lived in the presence of God here. 

And passing through the garden and gate of death 

Now liveth unto God f orevermore. ' ^ 



[167] 



Bibliography 



Those who wish to read more about the men 

whose lives are told briefly in this volume are re- 
ferred to these books, which were consulted by the 

author when writing ^' Eeapers of His Harvest." 

Stewart of Lovedale. James Wells. Fleming H. ReveU Co. 

The Life of James RobertsoD. Charles W. Gordon (Ralph 
Connor). Fleming H. Revell Co, 

The Apostle of Alaska. John W. Arctander. Fleming H. 
Revell Co. 

Herrick Johnson. Charles E. Robinson. Fleming H. Revell Co. 

Calvin W. Mateer. David W. Fisher. The Westminster Press. 

Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie. Robert Carter and Broth- 
ers. (Out of print.) 

Seven Years in Sierra Leone, the Life of William Johnson. 
A. T. Pierson, D. D. Fleming H. ReveU Co. 

Recollections. Washington Gladden. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Life of John Wesley. C. F. Winchester. Macmillan & Co. 

Autobiography of Daniel McGilvary. Fleming H. Revell Co. 

The Life of Alexander Maclaren. John Carlyle. Funk & 
Wagnalls Co. 

The Life of George Grenfell. George Hawkes. Fleming H. 
ReveU Co. 

The Life of Herbert Roswell Bates. S. Ralph Harlow. Flem- 
ing H. Revell Co. 

The Life of William Carpenter Bompas. H. A. Cody. E. P. 
Dutton & Co. 

From Alien to Citizen. Autobiography of Edward A. Steiner. 
Fleming H. Revell Co. 

An Artisan Missionary on the Zambesi. John MacConnachie. 
American Tract Society. 

Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of His Life. By 
his Wife. J. F. Taylor & Co. 
[ 168 ] 



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